


Moira (and Sombra) go to an anime convention

by MaximumCat



Series: The Line Between is so Thin it's Perforated [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Anime Conventions, Apologies, Body Pillows, Character Study, Chatting & Messaging, Communication, Conventions, Cosplay, Dogs, Don't split the party, Doomfist is a weeb, Extrovert Sombra, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, Godammit Sombra, Has no one written about anime conventions?, I feel like I'm making most of these tags up, Introvert Moira, Light Angst, Manga & Anime, Miscommunication, Moira is a weeb, Movie Night, POV Alternating, POV Multiple, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Rabbits, Sombra (Overwatch) is a Little Shit, Sombra's Teddy Bear, Team Bonding, Team Feels, Team Fluff, Team Talon (Overwatch), Team as Family, Teambuilding, Tentacles, Texting, Unreliable Narrator, Video & Computer Games, bath bombs, slight crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-05-25 16:11:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 33,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14980784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaximumCat/pseuds/MaximumCat
Summary: -------------------Ms. Colomar,Please prepare to accompany Dr. O’Deorain to a convention in three days’ time. The convention will be held in the US. Dress comfortably, and be prepared to assist her in the convention. Your ticket is already paid for, and you will be sharing a hotel room with the doctor. Any expenses pertaining to food or miscellaneous items you will require to ensure a smooth experience for the doctor will be compensated afterwards.  If you run into any issues, you can call upon Reyes for advice.Yours Truly,Akande Ogundimu------------------------A second fanfic: Be somewhat gentle, but feel free to concrit? :oNo romantic pairings, but a whole lot of friendship. Sort of.Based (very loosely) off my own experiences at anime conventions in Texas.Humor and fluff with some character studies and light feels.Rated T for language.Debating changing the title to "With the power of Science and Anime on my side..."





	1. Preparations - Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm pretty nervous about this one. So here's some thoughts: 1.) this fix is 100% written and beta'd. I just need to post chapters over the course of a few days. 2.) this fic ended up being 70. Pages. Long. 3.) there's a lot of set up before we get to the convention, and I'm hoping it pays off. 
> 
> This fix will generally focus on Moira (and Sombra), but in the first chapter you get Reaper and Maximilien's POV. I did the best I could to stick to canon, but canon has huge pockets of emptiness where no one knows what happened, character's motivations are unclear, and general world building is a little wtf, so I kind of had to extrapolate some. 
> 
> I am a little worried that it makes some of these things seem non-canon compliant in places, but hopefully, when it's all said and done it will make perfect sense? Or i can mark it as Canon-divergent or an AU or something? 
> 
> Also, while this is mostly humor, there are some moments of feels and of introspection. It will feel less slapstick humor than the last story though (which, btw is now in a series with this one! yay!)
> 
> I'm not sure if you absolutely need to read the first one to get this one, but there are a lot of call backs and later on the plot does involve a thing that happened in the previous story. 
> 
> Each section is also going to be from one character's POV and each character is unreliable because sometimes they have wrong information, incomplete information, they make assumptions, etc. 
> 
> Once again, beta'd by the lovely Chi_Yagami! They, however, are super duper busy, so I'm looking for a second Beta. I'll make a tumblr or something and link it here when I'm more ready. I also want to discuss my MANY FEELS about Moira on that tumblr, btw. EDIT: TUMBLR MADE - https://maximumcatfeels.tumblr.com 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

Sombra stared at her email with an immaculate raised brow. Normally, she was ecstatic to get an email summoning her for a mission. Especially after a period of nothing to do. Missions meant money and more importantly, chances to get valuable information. It didn’t matter if the information was about her teammates, Talon itself, or the target of the mission. But, this? This made her uneasy.

 

Normally the emails would be vaguely worded, nothing specific stated, other than a string of numbers that when decoded would be a date, time, and coordinates. This was unnervingly full of details, even if some were thinly veiled.

 

\-------------------

Ms. Colomar,

 

Please prepare to accompany Dr. O’Deorain to a convention in three days’ time. The convention will be held in the US. Dress comfortably, and be prepared to assist her in the convention. Your ticket is already paid for, and you will be sharing a hotel room with the doctor. Any expenses pertaining to food or miscellaneous items you will require to ensure a smooth experience for the doctor will be compensated afterwards.  If you run into any issues, you can call upon Reyes for advice.  

 

Yours Truly,

Akande Ogundimu

\------------------------

 

 

Sombra tapped her fingernails on her desk. Something was off about this, and she was going to find out what. 

 

Sombra flicked her wrist and opened her video call program. After a few more quick taps, it began to call her contact labeled “Meester Feester”.

 

It rang for a few moments, then Akande’s slightly scowling face popped into view.

 

“Sombra. What is the purpose of this call?”

 

“And hola to you too, jefe. But let’s cut to the chase, what the fresh hell was that email you sent me?”

 

Akande’s mouth shifted into a smirk but his eyebrows remained scowl-y. “I should think that was self-evident, Sombra, unless you are telling me you are having issues reading? You’re such a smart operative, I’d hate to have to cut you back on missions because of illiteracy.”

 

“Tch. I can read just fine, and what I’m asking is what the hell is this mission? A medical convention with Moira? What does she need me for? I’m sure she can handle herself at one of those. And what would I need to call Reaper for? I doubt any of the other attendees will be packing heat.”

 

“It’s not your place to ask questions, Sombra, only to follow orders. Besides, weren’t you complaining that we had nothing for you not two days ago?”

 

“That is beside the point. What would I even be doing?” she whined.  “I’ll be bored out of my skull with all the medical talk, and grossed out at all the pictures and illustrations…”

 

Sombra shuddered at the thought. Moira had once left a medical journal laying out with the page left open at some photos of some horrible skin condition. Sombra had barely managed to keep her breakfast down the first time, and just remembering it made her queasy.

 

Akande sighed and muttered, “You’ve shot people full of holes, and a few pictures gross you out?”

 

Sombra shot him a glare as he stated in a louder voice, “Look, if you want more details, maybe you should talk to Maximilien. He’s the one who picked you for this mission.”

 

Maximilien?  The well-dressed, Pi-loving omnic on Talon’s inner council? Seriously? Well fine then, she could do that. With another wave of her hand and few taps, another video call screen popped up and started ringing.

 

“Sombra? What are you doing? Why is it – Oh no, you better not have called-“ started Akande looking furious.

 

“Allo, Maximilien here.”

 

“SOMBRA!”  shouted Akande.

 

“Relejate, I am just following your orders.”

 

“Pardon?” queried Maximilien.

 

“Oh, I just wanted to know what is with this next mission that I am on, that’s all. I don’t want to be … unprepared for it, and Mr. Fist here said I should ask you.”

 

“Oh. I think I can be of help. What do you wish to know?”

 

“Why did you pick me for this mission? Moira is a big, tall, scary girl, she can handle herself.”

 

“That is true, but you are not there to protect her.”

 

“Oh? Am I there to carry out some other plan while she’s there? Am I digging up some dirt on the other attendees?” Sombra leaned forward in her seat at the thought. That would be well worth putting up with Miss Tall-and-creepy.

 

“Non, but feel free to do so if you wish.”

 

Sombra felt herself frown. “Okay… Am I stealing something that will be there at the convention?”

 

“While I am certain that there will be some valuable items there, that is not your purpose, non.”

 

“Am I watching her for signs of defection?”

 

“Non, we already know she’s only here for the funding of her projects.”

 

“Then WHY am I going to this stupid medical convention with Moira?!”

 

“She will need an extra set of hands, eyes, and ears while she is there. And well…”

 

“Well, what?”

 

“It’s a team building exercise of sorts.”

 

“Qué?”

 

“She will be sent out for more missions in the coming months, and we need to ensure team cohesion,” interjected Akande.

 

“But why ME? Why not Widow or Reaper?”

 

Akande continued, “Widow is not a good choice for this. She is… lacking… some social skills.” (No shit, thought Sombra, that tends to happen when you brainwash people.) “Reaper does normally go with her, but he will be unavailable this year. I would go, but I will also be unavailable.”

 

Sombra narrowed her eyes at Akande. He did look like he had actually wanted to go, but why? Maybe it would be good for his prosthetics company? Not that he directly owned it anymore, being an international criminal and all, but he had his ways of making it do what he wanted.

 

“Also,” piped up Maximilien. “It’s not a medical convention.”

 

* * *

 

“IT’S A FUCKING ANIME CONVENTION!” screamed Sombra at the black clad wraith sitting on his bed with a video call screen open. Reaper was doing the final touches on his sewing project and had more or less screened out her ranting and raving that she was sending through the call. She was pacing back and forth in her room, probably disturbing her neighbors. She was definitely disturbing him.

 

“Mmmmhmmm,” he hummed with an absent minded nod of his head.

 

“Why do I have to go to this STUPID gathering of weebs and,” Sombra paused struggling for words, “and people who don’t bathe, and,” Sombra waved her hands uselessly, once again stuck on phrasing, “and don’t know how to talk to girls, and-”

 

Reaper just nodded again, with a slightly different hum, to make it look like he was listening. She had been going for two hours at this point. On the plus side, he was happy with his new sewing machine that he had purchased with the latest payment from Talon. His last one had died a horrible death when Sombra had decided to see what settings she could mess with. He didn’t even know sewing machines could catch on fire without, you know, lighter fluid or something.

 

“And I’ll be STUCK with the queen of creepy bitchiness herself! Watching her run around like that fucking anime ninja is bad enough, now I bet she’ll dress up as him!”

 

Reaper idly remembered that Moira had in fact dressed up as that character one year. Good times.

 

Sombra slipped into Spanish without thinking as she got more worked up (not that Reaper cared), “And how can ANYONE bond with that red headed freak? She’s so creepy! And bitchy! And condescending!”

 

Reaper internally sighed. Moira was a complex person and being a friend with her was a complicated task at best. Even Reaper’s friendship/association with her was full of complexities and subject to moments of “why do I put up with you?” on both sides. He doubted that Moira had ever had an uncomplicated friendship/relationship/association in her entire life.

 

That being said, he was under the impression that Sombra at least tolerated Moira. Where was all this hostility coming from? Was Sombra really that pissed that she was being forced to go? Jesus Christ, she needed to get over it. She might even have fun at the convention if she got her head out of her ass long enough.

 

“ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?!” Sombra screeched.

 

“Mmmhmmm,” Reaper had heard almost everything but he liked to get back at Sombra whenever he could. He would never forget the door incident. Well, door _incidents_. And the sewing machine incident. And the coffee machine incident. He should probably start writing down all of the incidents so he could keep better track of what to be mad at Sombra about.

 

Sombra gave another loud screech of fury before suddenly going very quiet and still.

“And YOU,” she started in a dangerous low voice, with one finger pointed at the screen. “YOU used to go with her, and now you’re NOT. I’m going to find out why and I’m going to make you PAY!”

 

Reaper sighed and rolled his neck. Looks like he needed to nip this in the bud quick, and with Sombra, the best way was to just tell her the truth. “Look, kid. I would go with her if I could, but I really am on a mission during that time period and I really am the only one for the job. I‘ll even give you the mission details so you can see that I’m telling the truth if you stop whining for two fucking minutes. I’m almost done with this, and I need to finish it tonight.”

 

Sombra plopped herself down on her bed with a bounce and hugged her knees. “Fine.”

 

As she sat quietly and watched Reaper sew, he noticed that she subtly moved her head and body as if to quickly check that her webcam didn’t show her teddy bear on the bed. He could still see it, but she seemed to believe that it was hidden. Whatever, he didn’t care about the bear. It was funny to think that she still had such a childish thing anyway. Plus, it was a great weakness that he could exploit later if/when she ever finally went too far.  

 

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Reaper made a satisfied sound and held up the finished project with a nod to himself. Not his best work, but it would do.

 

He noticed Sombra freeze as the realization of what he was making hit her. The coat he was working on had long thin tight fitting sleeves and was tailored to fit a long thin torso…

 

“Is that… is that a costume for Moira?!” she shrieked.

 

* * *

 

_Several months ago:_

Maximilien was a practical omnic. He knew that he needed allies to survive on Talon’s cutthroat inner council. He had one in Akande (well, as much as one could have an ally in Talon), but he definitely needed more. The others on the council tended to be fickle, and easily swayed by the prospect of making money. There were exceptions of course but most had gladly followed any plan that made money. He hadn’t been terribly impressed by Vialli (the now-deceased informal lead of Talon’s inner council) and his “new direction” for Talon being a money machine. Money was nice, but Maximilien didn’t have any interest in being a member of a terrorist group just to make more of what he already had. He wanted the world to change, that was the entire point of Talon! Besides, you know, striking fear into the heart of people, or something. (They needed something like a corporate mission statement or a catchphrase or a motto…)

 

But not everyone had agreed with him, and since Vialli was now dead after being hurled off a balcony by a large burly African man who liked to punch things, Maximilien needed to make new allies and reinforce old ones to help mend bridges and keep his position stable while the internal politics played themselves out. He really needed allies, good ones, for the long haul. Especially if anyone figured out that he had not exactly stopped Akande from thwarting Vialli’s attempt to bump him off. (Although, as Akande proved with Vialli, allies only did you so much good when being thrown off a high balcony).

 

And in a world where a sizable portion of the population hated omnics, his best bet was to start with those who showed some inclinations to treat him as an actual being, rather than a walking, talking toaster. (He wasn’t sure why they were always compared to toasters either, there were lots of mechanical things on the planet, why fixate on something that darkened bread?! No omnic even came with a function that darkened bread!)

 

And that was where Moira came in. She was one who seemed fascinated by omnics and how they worked (and if sometimes her curiosity crossed the line from personal scientific interest to more than slightly creepy… well, no one was perfect). She had not been happy with the plan to assassinate Mondatta (she, just like Maximilien, had eventually been talked into begrudgingly letting it happen. They needed the unrest to start the change to the world. Apparently you couldn’t start change without a few broken religious leaders? Were they like eggs? Maximilien wasn’t sure anymore, that had been a confusing meeting.) She hadn’t been thrilled with Vialli either. That was more than likely because unless she was working on weapons, her research did not produce results that could lead to potential cash cows. Vialli had pissed her off by threatening to reduce her research money unless she made an investment worthy scientific breakthrough soon.

 

She also didn’t get along well with 99% of the human population as far as Maximilien could tell. Maybe it was her demeanor, or the way that her drive to explore and learn and do sometimes (often) became unnerving, but at any rate, she was not known to have many (if any) friends.

 

In short, she liked omnics, she was lonely, she was brilliant, she aligned with at least some of his agendas and therefore, she was a perfect candidate to help keep him on the council and not thrown off balconies in the near future. (Well, the fall probably wouldn’t kill him, but he didn’t want to find out.)

 

But part of getting her on his side was figuring out how to get her to consider himself to be part of her “friends and/or family unit” that humans liked to have. He had tried in the past with not much luck (not that he believed in luck anyway). All the overtures had fallen flat. She didn’t seem to hate him, but she didn’t seem to be very friendly to him either. Maybe he was just going about it the wrong way?

 

For now, he swallowed his pride and turned to the internet for help.

 

The omnics had some deep web forums and websites that were completely centered around omnics helping other omnics to figure out humans and how to interact with them (because the humans didn’t even fully understand their own stupid species and yet they had beaten the GOD AI in a war, WTF are humans, even?!)

 

They were enforced anonymity style sites, but you could sometimes pick out a user’s main function or lifestyle based on their answers and where they repeatedly visited and posted.

 

Maximilien had ended up helping this one user that sounded suspiciously like a member of the Shambali set up a chart for a betting pool in exchange for some advice on how to get humans to bond with each other (and himself). That betting pool chart had been super weird too. One option had been “archer punches cowboy in the dick before the new year”. What the hell?

 

At any rate, the totally-not-a-Shambali-monk-ha-ha user had given him some advice. Relationships of all kinds were based on trust, respect, and a few other things that Maximilien had not really been paying attention to. Start in smaller groups, give them opportunities to bond with each other through shared experiences, make sure that it is clear that their “weird” hobbies are ok (within reason), and dozens of other ideas…

 

But it had been enough to get his processors firing with possibilities. He listed off some facts in his head.

 

  * Moira loved anime. 
    1. People thought she was weird because of this (and other things)
    2. She was definitely lonely in this hobby because her coworkers in both Talon and Oasis weren’t into anime
  * Overwatch had not let her go to anime conventions 
    1. unsure why, need to check records (wasn’t one of the administration above her a Talon spy when she was in Overwatch? Maybe they had recorded why she wasn’t allowed to go.)
    2. scratch that, it was probably because they wanted to protect their image
  * Blackwatch HAD let her go to anime conventions (well, sort of) 
    1. She had in past encounters mentioned that she liked working for Blackwatch more than Overwatch
    2. Reyes was probably the reason she got to go (but that was probably as an apology for fucking her over with the fallout from the Venice incident)
  * Talon had no strong feelings about letting her go to anime conventions, as long as she wasn’t kidnapped or gave away any sort of information about Talon 
    1. Maybe send someone with her to make sure she doesn’t get kidnapped or drunk off her face and spill secrets?
    2. Sending a Talon operative to go with her would be best, but an Oasis coworker would be fine in a pinch
  * With Akande back in the picture, (and his active, reckless style of fighting) Moira would be forced onto the field more 
    1. The strike group would also include Reaper, Widow and Sombra
    2. Maybe some others in the future, too?
    3. Maybe see if any of them secretly liked anime?
  * Reaper was also now an inner council member, an alliance with him would not only strengthen Akande’s position, but his own. 
    1. He had gone on “vacations” with Moira in the past
    2. Maybe he could go to this anime convention and it would be a two birds, one stone situation?
  * The group would need cohesion, and if Maximilien helped them bond, he would be seen as part of the social structure too
  * Therefore, Moira needed to go to an anime convention with one or more members of the team.



 

Humming happily, Maximilien looked up the past conventions Moira had been to and started comparing upcoming convention dates with missions and agent availability.

 

 

* * *

 

_Logged in as Max_is_a_millionaire_

_Starting Encrypted Private Chat with NotMadJustDisappointedScientist @ 14:30 XX/XX/20XX_

_Max_is_a_millionaire: Have you packed for your trip? You’ll be leaving in two days._

_NotMadJustDisappointedScientist: Yes! Except for the cosplay I will be doing on Sunday. Reaper is putting some finishing touches on it, but he said he would be done soon._

_Max_is_a_millionaire: I hope he will get it to you in time. That seems stressful to not have it packed when you are leaving so soon._

_NotMadJustDisappointedScientist: Ahaha! It’s fine, we’ve both pulled all-nighters to finish our cosplays and then rolled onto the plane with nothing but coffee in our bloodstreams._

_NotMadJustDisappointedScientist:  Besides, the last one is from a new anime, and the theme of the Con this year is classic anime, which my other two cosplays are. So it’s not that big of a deal if I don’t get it in time._

_Max_is_a_millionaire: That’s… good?_

_Max_is_a_millionaire: I still feel a bit confused, I must confess. I didn’t think Reaper was into anime?_

_NotMadJustDisappointedScientist: Ah, no, not as such. He DOES however love costumes and drama, and cosplay has a lot of those elements, so he usually tagged along to inflate his ego. His work always gets so many pics and compliments!_

_Max_is_a_millionaire: About that… Your face will not be visible in the pictures; I hope?_

_NotMadJustDisappointedScientist: Nono! I’ll be covered pretty much from head to toe! That’s why I needed help._

_Max_is_a_millionaire: ah, yes, I remember, you needed a seeing eye person._

_NotMadJustDisappointedScientist: Exactly! :o)_

_Max_is_a_millionaire: You will also alert us at the first sign of trouble? I am worried about what our Security team found…_

_NotMadJustDisappointedScientist: I will, but I am hoping that if I am covered and don’t draw attention to myself, I should be fine._

_NotMadJustDisappointedScientist: they aren’t exactly the smartest bunch, it should be easy to escape detection. I wouldn’t worry. :o)_

_Max_is_a_millionaire: Good_

_Max_is_a_millionaire: oh, by the way, did you get the books and data discs that Akande wanted signed by that one man who punches things?_

_NotMadJustDisappointedScientist: that’s … hilariously wrong but yes, yes I did. They’ll all be signed by the voice actor of the reboot, but it will cost him~_

_Max_is_a_millionaire: … what are you going to do to him?_

_NotMadJustDisappointedScientist: … nothing? It’s just going to be expensive to even get in line and I’m going to make him pay me back for the fees?_

_Max_is_a_millionaire: ah, I apologize. I misunderstood. :(_

_NotMadJustDisappointedScientist: it’s alright. :/_

 

Maximilien closed the chat program and rubbed his metal temples. One step at a time, Max, one step at a time.

 


	2. Preparations - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Moira, please tell me that isn’t your suitcase,” Sombra pleaded when Moira finally got close enough.
> 
>  
> 
> Moira cocked her head to one side with her signature condescending smirk. “Well, hello to you too, Sombra. I thought Akande was the one that had given up on basic manners.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this story is about Moira going to an anime convention, but there's some set up for it, so uh, bear with me?

 Moira was so excited she was having trouble keeping her normal professional demeanor at work. The interns and her colleagues at Oasis had picked up on it two days ago, and were not only not so subtly trying to not only extend her good mood but figure out the cause of it.

 

Moira has so far been gifted with three chocolate bars, two cups of coffee from a local Kofi Aromo made just how she likes it, one small flask of high quality whiskey from Ireland (from the one intern that was a secular Muslim) and one large bottle of even better quality whiskey (from an extremely traditional Muslim fellow Oasis Minister). Each of these had come with questions. Some wondered if it was her birthday, maybe an anniversary, or did she meet someone?

 

She tried to snap at them for the stupid questions, but it didn’t come out as biting as it usually did. And once she stated that she was going on a holiday, the questioner would begin spouting how they agreed that she had needed a holiday, it would do her so much good, and that she was such a hard worker that she deserved even more holidays! Oh but where was she going for her holiday? Somewhere tropical and warm? Or back to Ireland?

 

Moira just smiled and replied that she was going to have fun with some friends, old and new.

And well, that was the truth, so she wasn’t really lying. She was just being vague.

 

Ever since she had been denied time off to go to an anime convention (even though she hadn’t taken so much as a sick day) by her supervisors in Overwatch, she kept the secret of where she was going close to her chest. Reyes had found out her desire to dress up (during the Venice incident, of all things) and been much more supportive in Blackwatch, but in the end he was the only one in Blackwatch (that wasn’t a Talon spy) that had been nice to her on a regular basis. And well, she had only gone to the one that he sent her to (as an apology for royally screwing her over with the fallout of the Venice incident) before she got the boot.

 

Speaking of current employers, Talon obviously didn’t care, judging by how they were the ones sending her, and had been trying recently to keep her happy in various ways as well. More funding, more assistants, more willing test subjects, and the best one so far, a new coffee machine just for her and her assistants.

 

Moira wasn’t sure exactly why they were doing this, but she suspected part of it was the other inner council members jockeying for her support. She tried her best to stay as neutral as possible, but she was in charge of keeping some of their prize assets, Widowmaker and Reaper, as healthy as they could be. (And if secretly she was more aligned with Akande and Maximilien but still getting favors from each of them, that was fine too.) Besides, the council members (including Akande and Max) were really after more control of Widowmaker and Reaper, and any other assets she would inevitably end up making, not her.

 

She was just going to be used again, just like in Overwatch, Blackwatch, and she suspected Oasis would end up dumping her at the soonest possibility too. Oh well, might as well get a free anime convention out of the deal.

 

And this, she thinks, as she opens the door to her apartment after a long day at Oasis, is why she liked dogs better than people.

 

Her dogs were the best thing in her life (besides her work, obviously) and they loved her just as much as she loved both of them. They were so well trained, too! They didn’t jump up, but they did rush her legs to greet her and did their happy dances with little nub tails wagging. Once she got them settled (with some pets and a treat), she went to go check on her rabbit.

 

Her rescued lab rabbit was quietly nibbling veggies in his hutch, flicking an ear in her direction.  He didn’t have a name, or rather, he didn’t have a name that stuck. His designation in the lab had been W1-LL so she called him Will for a while, but he also had been called Mr. Bon Bon the Bun Bun, Long ear Larry, Better Angela, Fluffbutt (Destroyer of Worlds, all hail his Fluffiness), Killer, and THAT FUCKING RABBIT THAT BIT ME (by multiple interns and Angela on several occasions).

 

That last name alone had been a major factor in keeping him instead of destroying him after the experiments like she was supposed to do. How could she destroy such a good experiment that also had the intelligence to bite the supposedly angelic Angela Ziegler? Another sign that animals were better than people, in Moira’s mind.

 

Today, however, she was going to call him Mr. Bun.

 

“Mr. Bun! Let’s go look at my list for packing, hmm?” She cooed at him as she lifted him out of his hutch.

 

The dogs followed at her heels as she went into her bedroom, rabbit in her arms.

 

As the dogs settled down in their favorite spots, she set the bunny down on her bed. She pulled up a holoscreen with a list of items on it and then opened up her massive suitcase and a smaller second one beside it.

 

“Ok,” Moira began to her animal audience, “Let’s check over everything, one more time…”

 

* * *

 

 

Sombra slouched down in the seat of the taxi, crossing her arms and scowling.

 

Where the hell was Moira? She should be coming out of the airport by now!

 

 It was insufferable enough that Sombra had been told by Reaper that it would be best if she dyed her hair and/or wore a hat, only for Akande to insist that she had to do both before the convention. Now she was stuck waiting for Moira to show up while reduced to a bad dye job of peroxide blonde with a slouch grey knit hat? Her fashion senses were crying just as much as her sense of patience.   

 

She gave a small kick to the passenger’s seat in front of her, making the Omnic driver turn its head to look at her. Maybe it was glaring at her, but with its fixed width optical receptors, Sombra wasn’t sure if it was or not. Not that she cared.

 

“Will your friend be arriving soon, miss?” It inquired with a mild (if robotic) tone of voice.

 

“She better, or I’ll kill her,” grumbled Sombra.

 

The driver gave a robotic hum in response.

 

They lapsed back into silence for what felt like ages (it was the longest two minutes of Sombra’s life) before the driver spoke up again.

 

“You said your friend was tall with red hair correct?”

 

“If by tall you mean, she’s like, part tree or something, then yeah.”

 

“Ah, well, I think that might be her, possibly?”

 

Sombra scrambled to sit up straight to follow the omnic’s line of sight.

 

Lo and behold, there Moira was, across the pedestrian walkway, in all of her tall, impeccably well dressed, red haired glory. Her nails, her terrifying, claw like nails that competed with real fucking eagle talons, had been trimmed to more normal lengths. Still mildly concerning in length, but normal. Sunglasses covered her distinctive eyes, and a sharply tailored tan outercoat covered most of her well-dressed thin body. She had a medium suitcase by her left side (trimmed in purple and gold), and her cell phone in her right hand.

 

Oh, thought Sombra, I thought she would have brought a bigger suitcase. Maybe it won’t be as crazy as I thought.

 

Opening the taxi door, Sombra whistled and waved at Moira to beckon her over. “Hey, chica! This way!”

 

Moira looked up, distractedly waved back with the cell phone in hand, before turning to a much shorter man next to her that Sombra hadn’t noticed before. He was not a large man by normal standards, but next to Moira he looked even smaller. He was also struggling with a suitcase that looked like it could comfortably fit a Great Dane inside.

 

To Sombra’s dawning horror, the man with the huge suitcase followed after Moira’s long-legged steps in the taxi’s direction.

 

“Moira, please tell me that isn’t your suitcase,” Sombra pleaded when Moira finally got close enough.

 

Moira cocked her head to one side with her signature condescending smirk. “Well, hello to you too, Sombra. I thought Akande was the one that had given up on basic manners.”

 

Sombra watched helplessly as the man finally caught up, dragging the suitcase of doom behind him. He was panting from exertion and now that he was closer, Sombra could see that he was one of the airport personnel from the patch on his uniform.

 

“Ma’am,” he wheezed. “Do you need…” he panted, “Me to…”

 

“Put my suitcases in the trunk of the taxi?” Moira finished for him, “Yes, please.”

 

Sombra glanced at the man, he was looking at the massive suitcase like it was going to kill him. It might, if he somehow managed to drop it onto himself.  

 

“Moira,” Sombra stated as calmly as she felt she could, given the circumstances, “Why do you have two suitcases?”

 

“I couldn’t fit everything into one, obviously,” remarked Moira snidely, turning back to her phone.

 

Sombra ground her teeth, quickly noting that the omnic taxi driver apparently decided to help the poor airport employee with the suitcases while they were chatting.

 

“Why couldn’t you fit everything into one normal sized suitcase? Why do you have one the size of a small pony?!”

 

Moira smirked as she continued playing on her phone. “Because I needed to pack a lot of things, and they didn’t all fit? And maybe I have a dire need for a pony. Maybe it’s my emotional support pony; I am rather a delicate flower as you can see.”

 

The man and the omnic both stopped struggling with the larger suitcase for a second to stare incredulously at Moira’s back.

 

Sombra stared at her, too. “Please tell me there’s not an actual pony in there.”

 

Moira rolled her eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

The taxi cab ride had been…awkward to say the least.

 

After the luggage had been loaded in the trunk of the taxi cab, Sombra swore the back end of the car hovered closer to the ground than the front half did. Moira had apparently tipped the airport employee a generous amount and then sat in the back seat of the car, absorbed in her phone’s screen. Sombra glared at her from the corner of her eye, but Moira didn’t seem to notice or care.

 

The omnic driver had tried to strike up conversation several times, asking what they were there for, how long had they been friends, where did they come from, but Moira had been disinterested and Sombra wasn’t sure how much she was allowed to tell people. So, she made stuff up. They were there for a convention of stinky cheese lovers, they had been friends for 1360 hours, and they came from Earth (which was a real city in Texas, actually). The omnic had just nodded with polite hums.

 

Once at the hotel, Moira had firmly requested/demanded some bellhops to take her luggage to the room. Which was fine with Sombra. She didn’t want to deal with all that luggage. Her own things fit in a medium duffel bag. Moira had tipped the driver, distracting them while Sombra planted a small script of code to erase any video/audio/receipt evidence of either of them ever being in the driver’s car.

 

The hotel was classy and much nicer than what Sombra had been expecting. Then again, Akande had apparently wanted to go, and as much as he liked to spout that “Conflict makes us stronger,” he was one for luxury and creature comforts. If it had been a dump, he would have thrown a fit.

 

By the time that Moira had finished checking in herself (with her real name) and Sombra (with a fake one), Sombra was ready to just go to the room, do a quick sweep for bugs, and then crash. 

 

The room was nice, two queen sized beds (thank god, Sombra was going to hack Maximilien into becoming a glorified toaster if she had to share a bed with Miss Very-long-limbs-with-sharp-pointy-elbows-and-knees), tasteful décor, a nice bathroom with a roomy shower and fluffy towels, and Sombra was feeling better just thinking about a nice hot shower.  Moira’s luggage was already inside the room, with the two bellhops talking to Moira about… pictures? Sombra couldn’t bring herself to care, once they were out she’d do her sweep and then decide if she wanted to take a nap or shower first.

 

 Sombra decided that she could do sweep of the bathroom while the bellhops finished talking to Moira about whatever it was they were talking about and left. Except that when she finished searching the bathroom, they were still there, talking about something being adorable and looking at something on Moira’s phone.

 

Sombra crept up behind them and looked over the shorter bellhop’s shoulder to see what they were talking about: a picture of Moira’s two dogs and bunny curled up in a sleepy pile on a couch.

 

Ok, that was pretty freaking cute.

 

“Well,” began one of the bellhops, “We better get back to work. Hope you have fun! Let us see the pictures of your cosplays before you check out, ok? Oh! And before I forget, the big box you shipped here will be brought up in about an hour.”

 

Sombra shot Moira a glare. In addition to her two suitcases, one of which could fit a medium sized child and its teddy bear quite comfortably, she had also shipped a “big box”?! How much stuff did this woman need?!

 

Moira just laughed and waved them off with a smile. “Of course boys, feel free to bring it up whenever you get the chance. Oh, and use a cart. It’s not heavy, just bulky, and a tad fragile.”

 

The bellhops finally left, shutting the door behind them with a click. Moira immediately sat down on the bed closest to the window and once again, pulled out her phone.

 

Sombra rolled her eyes, but bit her tongue and started sweeping the room for bugs, starting with the dresser along the far wall.

 

Moira’s tapping on her phone grew more and more agitated as Sombra continued her search. Eventually Moira huffed and said to Sombra as she was looking under the bed Moira was sitting on, “You’d think it would be easier to convince people to take care of their most valuable assets but no. It’s like pulling teeth.”

 

Sombra poked her head out from underneath the bed with a frown. “Are you trying to get them to make Amélie wear a sweater again?”

 

Moira threw her hands into the air with a dramatic sigh, “It’s not as though she does everything they tell her without question. Why can’t they just tell her to wear a sweater? Or at least give her something besides a skin tight body suit with no insulation? Just because she can’t feel the cold doesn’t mean it’s not potentially damaging her.”

 

Sombra tapped her fingers against the bed. “Can’t _you_ just… tell her to wear a sweater?”

 

Moira sighed, “I’ve tried. She says she doesn’t feel cold. I tell her to wear one anyway. Then she complains that she doesn’t have any that are in season, or the right color for her skin tone, or whatever fashion related excuse she can come up with at the time.”

 

Sombra just looked at Moira with a raised eyebrow.

 

Moira sighed and put her phone down, “Yes, I know. Whoever did her neural conditioning procedure has a lot of explaining to do. This fashion related resistance may lead to issues down the road. Who knows? Maybe refusal to wear sweaters will lead to her refusing to carry orders against a well-dressed target, and then she goes into hiding, and then goes to the idiots at Overwatch (who _clearly_ don’t know what they are doing) and they accidentally kill her trying to fix her and then there won’t be any asset at all. All because they didn’t remember to override the woman’s fashion sense.”

 

Sombra didn’t know what to say to that, so she gave an aggravated groan and flopped her head down onto the bed.


	3. The Night Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, at least Sombra wasn’t screaming in Spanish anymore, but Moira wasn’t sure that this was an improvement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any ideas on how to tag this story, I could use the help... T-T #howdoitag #wtfaretags
> 
> After writing this story, I have come to love Sombra even more. Is that normal?

Moira had often been accused of being the neatest messy person in existence by people who she had been forced to share a space with in the past. She started out neat and organized, but the further and further she got into projects the messier and messier her side of the space became. It wasn’t unhygienic, it was just … cluttered. It was always a source of conflict between her and whomever she had the misfortune of sharing a space with. She’d clean up and organize a bit if she hit a patch of stagnation in her work, but it was always too late for the other person. When she had been younger, she had tried to be more considerate, but gave up as she got older after it didn’t seem to matter either way. People just didn’t like her and vice versa, no point in wasting energy.

 

So when Sombra came fresh out of the shower with her hair still in a towel, shrieking about how the room was suddenly a mess just because Moira had been unpacking and needed the flat surfaces of both beds to help organize and stage her cosplays, Moira had not been surprised.

 

“What the HELL?! I was only in the shower for 15 minutes! How did you manage this level of disaster so fucking quickly?!” Sombra stomped her foot and her precariously hair-towel-turban-wrap swayed dangerously on her head.

 

“Needed the space, I’ll be done in a bit,” Moira continued unpacking and checking what she was unpacking against her carefully curated list on the holoscreen she had up. “Just,” Moira waved her hand in the direction of the bed that had Sombra’s duffel bag on the edge of it (surrounded by various bits of clothing), “Put your bag on the floor and sit there for a bit.”

 

That had apparently been the wrong thing to say, because now Sombra was continuing to rant, but now in a louder voice and in Spanish. Her hair-towel-turban was starting to come unraveled from how much she was angrily waving her arms and pointing.

 

Moira just went back to her work and ignored her for now. If she was anything like McCree used to be, she’d eventually calm down on her own. Or she’d contact someone who could calm her down. Moira was no good for helping people emotionally, it was better that she stayed out of it.

 

Sure enough, after a few minutes, Sombra realized that Moira wasn’t listening, decided to call Reaper and complain to him. In Spanish.

 

Moira knew that Sombra really didn’t want to be here with her going to this convention, but Moira had not been exactly thrilled at Maximilien’s decision either. She had originally been planning to sit this one out because Reaper couldn’t go, but when Maximilien had said that he would pay for everything and pull strings at Oasis to get her holiday time without too many issues, she had immediately said she’d go without a second thought. She had been hoping that she could convince Akande to go, but he was busy also (doing… something, probably trying to get the other Talon inner council members in line). She had been wondering if Maximilien himself had been planning to go with her, but then he announced that Sombra would come along.

 

 It wasn’t that Moira didn’t like Sombra, far from it. They had a lot of things in common, including overwhelming amounts of sass and a deep down drive to find out more about the world they lived in at any cost. They both liked annoying people for the hell of it (especially Reaper) and were generally on good terms with each other. Sombra had, in fact, sent the information of Dr. Ziegler’s illness and subsequent darting by Ana to Moira of her own free will, no strings attached! Moira sent Sombra cute animal videos of her animals, and also passed along tips about information leads that Sombra might find interesting as thank you. She also passed on Sombra’s contribution for the betting pool about McCree/Shimada H to Ziegler. They were content as they were in their acquaintance. Well, Moira was at least.  

 

It was just that… Sombra tended to cause trouble when she was bored (much like Genji and McCree had in Blackwatch) and Moira was pretty sure that Sombra had been told to come, not volunteered herself. Therefore, she was going to have to try and keep Sombra interested in actually sticking around for several hours a day, for three days, in a crowded convention hall, all while being in costumes with limited vision and sometimes limited mobility.

 

So much for being a relaxing holiday away from work.

 

Sombra was now taking deep breaths (complete with hand gestures) still standing in place with her hair-towel-turban halfway unraveled, eyes firmly shut and her eyebrows scrunched. She must have finished her call with Reaper. He must have recommended that she calm down before trying to talk again.

 

Moira had, by this point, gotten everything unpacked, catalogued, and grouped together except for the contents of the box she had shipped. It had been delivered while Sombra was in the shower. She decided that she could try to be nice for a little while. She did actually like Sombra after all, which was more than she could say for most people. She hoped Sombra knew that. She knew she wasn’t good at showing her feelings most days. Partly because of just her own prickly demeanor and partly because of… well.  She had to test Widowmaker’s heart-slowing and emotion diminishing serum on someone, and who better than herself? It had partly come from herself anyway. She had noticed the slight difference in her recorded heart rate after the experiment that had ended up turning her right arm slightly blue. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that she had noted her own dampened emotions after that experiment as well. What was good for the goose was good for the gander, so she sometimes gave herself a small dose of Widow’s serum just to suppress any emotions she didn’t want to feel.

 

Trying to remember how to look non-combative, Moira ducked her head down and rolled her shoulders inwards. “I’ll be moving the things off your bed into the closet and drawers first. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. I apologize for taking up your space.”

 

Sombra’s eyes flew open and snapped her head to stare at Moira. The hair-towel-turban finally lost its fight with gravity and unraveled completely.

 

Apparently, Moira had done one of the rarest things in the world, because as she dutifully moved things off the bed Sombra had claimed with her bag, Sombra just stared at her like she’d grown another head taller. Moira was going to have to tell Reaper that she had cracked the code to getting Sombra to shut up. Right after she figured out what exactly she had done, that is…

 

Once the bed was all clear (except for Sombra’s own duffel bag) Moira moved to work on her own bed. Sombra slowly moved to sit on her own bed, like she was afraid that Moira was going to snap. When finally seated, she pulled out a holoscreen and started tapping away at it.

 

Well, at least Sombra wasn’t screaming in Spanish anymore, but Moira wasn’t sure that this was an improvement.

 

Moira decided it was time to go back to ignoring Sombra and pre-test the parts she would need for her second cosplay: A tall yellow octopus looking creature dressed in a professor’s robe named Koro-Sensei from the anime Assassination Classroom. For this cosplay she needed a large round head to wear over her own head, plus some long yellow tentacles that she would need for arms. The head and the arm tentacles had some color-changing tech (the character showed various emotions through color changes). The tentacles had the ability to be prehensile and hold objects as well as do basic poses with its “fingers”. She hadn’t done it herself, she had gone to the interns at the engineering programs at Oasis to get them to help her out. As such, they had taken the design and made it to all of her specifications. In return, she negotiated a bit of extra credit for their hard work with their professors. Win-win.

 

The only problem was, it had to be put together and while the students had dutifully provided instructions, the instructions were in Arabic on a tattered, coffee-stained piece of paper.  Moira could read bits and pieces of Arabic, but she wasn’t fluent in it by any means. (Whenever she lectured, she had a translator with her.) She kept meaning to rewrite the instructions into English or Gaelic but she kept forgetting. Oh well, she was pretty sure she could figure it out.

 

She left the head in the shipping box (it didn’t need assembly, just to be plugged into the final array), but collected all the tentacles pieces she would need including the base harness she’d wear underneath the costume. She arranged them on the floor around her with her back up against her bed.

 

Moira was about halfway through the tentacle reconstruction project when her phone rang. It was the lovely omnic neighbor she had that liked to puppy-sit. They must be checking in for the (Moira did some mental calculations of time zone changes) day. Moira debated not picking up, but decided that her dogs were more important than Sombra’s potential snooping.

 

With the call accepted, the phone popped up a holoscreen immediately filled with the nose of a curious dog, complete with snuffling sound.

 

A female omnic robotic voice rang out in the background, “Girls! You aren’t supposed to crowd the camera like that! You’ll get your nose prints all over it!”

 

Moira laughed, “It’s fine. They’re just so excited to see mummy, aren’t you, little ones?” She broke off into baby talk, cooing at her dogs through the screen.

 

Moira could hear Sombra shifting on the bed behind her, but didn’t think anything of it. “How are my sweeties behaving? They’re being good girls; I hope?”

 

The omnic lightly shoved the larger dog out of the way and stuck the smaller one in front of the camera. “They’re always such little angels! You’ve really trained them well. I never have any complaints about these two, you know this.”

 

The smaller dog yipped in confirmation.

 

“Oh dear, does that mean that Sir Flopsy is being naughty?”

 

She could hear Sombra whisper “Sir FLOPSY?!” incredulously behind her.

 

“Well, he pulled his favorite trick again and disappeared for a little bit. I put him down by the sofa and turned away for two seconds, and poof! He’s gone, not under the sofa, not behind it, not anywhere! I honestly don’t know where he goes, it’s so odd.”

 

“He’s just a naughty little bunny. He does like his fruits though as a treat, so maybe try to tempt him with that when he pulls his parlor trick again.”

 

“Oh! I did! He’s currently got some apple to nibble on.”

 

The omnic set down the little dog and carefully picked up the rabbit for the camera. It had an apple slice partly hanging out of its mouth, placidly chewing on it.

 

Moira mentally reminded herself to do some scientific research into the effect on cute animals on human brains, because even she was not immune to baby babbling at her own bunny. He was just so damn cute!

 

Suddenly, the holoscreen tripled in size! Moira could feel Sombra shifting to sit next to her.

 

“Awwwww, he IS a cutie!” Sombra cooed at the rabbit on the screen.

 

“Oh! Is this your human friend? I’m so glad you made a human friend! That’s great, Moira!” the omnic babbled, setting the rabbit down in its lap.

 

“Yup,” drawled Sombra, “I’m her one and only human friend.”

 

Moira plastered on a smile that even she knew looked fake. “Yes, this is …my… friend, from, uh…”

 

“Work,” supplied Sombra.

 

The omnic titled its head. “I’ve never seen you around Oasis University. Are you new?”

 

Before Moira could try to salvage the conversation, Sombra stepped in. “Oh, no. I’m not in Oasis, but when my _good friend here_ Moira travels, I see her a lot then. I help her with logistics and other things.”

 

Moira quickly added, “Yes, she is invaluable to my work when I travel.”

 

“Oh, that’s nice. You made a work friend! We should work on getting you a not-work friend next. Oh, but what is your name, friend?”

 

Moira was inwardly panicking by this point. They hadn’t agreed on what to tell anyone!

 

Sombra once again had all the solutions. “Oh mierda, it appears that the internet here is bad. Sorry, but we’ll have to chat more later!”

 

And as she said it, Moira could hear the telltale clicking that Sombra was moving her fingers behind their backs, and as she moved her fingers, the video was cutting in and out before it cut out completely.

 

“Well,” remarked Moira. “That’s one way to end an unwanted conversation.”

 

“Yup,” said Sombra popping the ‘p’ at the end. “Also, SIR FLOPSY?!”

 

* * *

 

After the call, they had a long talk of the proper naming of rabbits (Sombra apparently didn’t like any of the ones that Moira had listed off, but didn’t have any better ones to offer), a shorter talk about cosplay (while Moira finished up assembling her tentacles and head and Sombra stated that she didn’t want to know why Moira had tentacles very loudly and repeatedly), a brief discussion of what weapons they were bringing (Moira wasn’t bringing any and Sombra was going to sneak in a switchblade but leave her hacking gloves and translocators behind), and then they mutually decided to just go to bed because it had been a long day.

 

Sombra was already in clothes she could sleep in (just a plain oversized t-shirt and loose pants), so she just kicked off the covers and laid down. Moira, like Reaper, had a more intense night time routine.

 

Sombra wasn’t sure what the hell Moira was doing in the bathroom, but it had been 30 minutes and she was still in there. Sombra needed Moira to pass out first so she could retrieve her teddy bear from the duffel bag. She couldn’t sleep very well without him. She’d have to wake up first, too, to hide him away, but Sombra could deal with that.

 

Finally, Moira emerged from the bathroom. For the amount of time spent in there, Sombra was expecting a night cream mask on her face (in bone white or hideous witch green), but she seemed bare faced. She had changed clothes into a tank top and loose pants that didn’t quite make it to her ankles. No socks on her long feet, and Sombra was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing a bra (not that Sombra was sure that she even wore a bra during the day, it wasn’t like she needed it).

 

Moira carefully peeled back the covers and top sheet, and laid on her side in the middle of the bed at a diagonal. Of the four pillows that the bed came with, one went under her head, the next went between her knees (slightly bent), one went behind her back (just touching it), and the last she hugged to her chest with one arm.

 

Sombra was not sure what to make of this sleeping position, other than being grateful that she got her own bed to sleep in.

 

“Turn out the light when you’re done, Sombra. Goodnight.” And with that Moira seemed to fall asleep instantly.

 

Sombra stared at her for a while, listening to her breathing and seeing if she’d really fallen asleep. After about five minutes, Sombra gave up and quietly hacked the light switch to turn out the light. She then reached into her duffel bag, pulled out her teddy bear, hugged him to her chest. She also slipped her switch blade under the pillow, just in case she would need to stab a bitch very quickly. Finally, she laid down and fell asleep with only Moira’s steady breathing as background noise.

 

Tomorrow would be interesting.


	4. The First Day - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ah, it’s always nice to find someone else from the series you’re cosplaying isn’t it?” agreed Moira.
> 
>  
> 
> “Can we take a picture?!” exclaimed pink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure: I have not seen any Naruto besides like 2 episodes. And the main reason why Moira does Kakashi instead of Tobi is that one of my friends was being quasi-stalked by a guy that cosplayed Tobi and since she helps me with these stories I didn't want to trigger her (or myself - i was there for the ordeal).

Sombra decided that by 7:24 AM it was safe to say that today was shit. Normally, she’d at least wait until noon, but for today? Today, she’d make an exception.

 

She had failed to wake up before Moira for starters, but then again the red-headed certifiably crazy scientist had neglected to mention that she was getting up at the ass-crack of dawn.

 

While Sombra hadn’t pulled out the knife under her pillow and stabbed Moira, it had been a near thing. Hadn’t Moira been part of a black-ops organization? Did she not know better than to wake up people out of a deep sleep by suddenly shaking their shoulder? Sombra hadn’t stabbed Moira (yet), but she had apparently hit Moira in the face with her teddy bear in her panicked flailing.

 

Moira, to her credit, didn’t seem to mind. She simply picked up the bear from the floor, set it onto Sombra’s pillow gently, all while telling her that she should order something for breakfast from room service, or if she wanted to, she should go down to the lobby for the free continental breakfast.

 

Then she just sauntered off, still in her tank top and pants towards the bathroom. Sombra stared after her for a few seconds, still trying to piece together what just happened and getting her heart to stop racing.

 

Sombra didn’t feel like dealing with people, so she ordered food through room service after one very brief text message exchange with Reaper.

 

_Sombra: What does Moira eat for Bfast?_

_Reaper: Nothing, usually_

_Reaper: But you need to get her to eat something or she’ll faint at the con_

 

Sombra rolled her eyes. Of fucking course, she was going to have to babysit the nearly 50-year-old woman into eating something so she wouldn’t pass out.

 

_Reaper: Try toast with strawberry jam_

_Reaper: Oh, and make sure she drinks enough water or she’ll get a headache_

_Reaper: or faint_

_Reaper: or both_

 

After calling room service for food (including one plate of toast with an assortment of jams for Moira and plate of huevos rancheros with fruit for herself), Sombra decided to keep texting Reaper while Moira hogged the restroom.

 

_Sombra: do I need to make sure she goes potty too?_

_Reaper: naw, she’s got that covered_

_Reaper: but you may have to help her into and out of costume so she can go_

_Reaper: depending on the outfit_

 

As if on cue, Moira came out of the bathroom, hair damp and with a thin dark turtle neck shirt on and dark loose pants that ended right above her ankles.

 

“Bathroom’s free,” Moira said without preamble, “for now, anyway.”

Sombra was not sure what that meant exactly, but she did not want to take the chance of being locked out when her bladder finally woke up, so she hurriedly gathered her clothes for the day and scurried to the bathroom.

 

About twenty minutes later, Sombra emerged fresh, clean, and dressed for the day. Moira looked up mid bite from her plate of toast with some sort of red jam on it with wide eyes. Apparently the food had come in while Sombra was showering.

 

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” Sombra bit out. “I’m not going in costume. Max told me I didn’t have to and I’m not!”

 

Moira slowly finished chewing and swallowed her bite. “Um. It’s not that. I won’t force you to go in cosplay.”

 

“Then what is it?”

 

Moira glanced at the clock on the nightstand between the beds. “Uh, I’m used to Reaper taking a long time in there to get ready, plus a long breakfast, and us having to take turns to do makeup and final touches… so I got us up early… But you don’t need the extra time… And I won’t be doing makeup…”

 

Sombra looked at the clock. 6:45 AM. “What time does the convention open?” She asked, suspecting she wouldn’t like the answer.

 

Moira looked down at her plate of toast and mumbled something.

 

“What was that?”

 

Moira mumbled slightly louder, but still didn’t look up from her plate.

 

“Moira…” began Sombra dangerously.

 

“10:00 AM. And we only need about 15 minutes to get there by taxi service.” Moira stated clearly, looking up from her plate but still not looking Sombra in the eye.

 

Sombra wanted to yell but she remembered Reaper telling her last night that it wouldn’t help. So she sat down on her bed with an angry huff and decided to eat her breakfast of huevos rancheros and fruit.

 

The huevos rancheros were awful, and the fruit wasn’t quite ripe yet, but Sombra forced it all down her throat just so she wouldn’t have to talk to Moira. She pointedly didn’t talk or look at Moira as the red haired woman continued getting ready.

 

But Sombra ran out of food to choke down, and she was easily bored, so she decided to watch Moira get ready out of the corner of her eye.

 

Moira had finished her toast and moved on to putting more of her cosplay on. Something was off about her, and Sombra was not sure what it was. Moira had used a white bandage on her feet and part of her long calves, then sipped on the ugliest looking open toed, open heeled shoes that Sombra had ever seen in her life. Then some sort of box-y pouch strapped to one leg with more white bandages. By the time Moira was shrugging what looked like an olive green military flak jacket/vest thing, Sombra had figured it out.

 

“Your chest…” started Sombra without properly thinking.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“You look flatter than normal…”

 

Moira froze in the process of zipping up the jacket. The air felt like it dropped about ten degrees. Sombra suddenly remembered how stupid she really was when she was barely awake and without good coffee. The silence stretched on uncomfortably while Sombra had visions of being found dead in the hotel room by the cleaning staff and her brain supplied that no one would miss her and oh god she hadn’t been to confession in a long time-

 

“I’m wearing a binder,” stated Moira somehow making her voice both icy and venomous at the same time. “This character is male.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yes, _oh_.”

 

Moira stomped off to the bathroom with a few items in her hands and not-quite-slammed the door shut.

 

Sombra immediately texted Reaper.

 

_Sombra: oh fuck oh fuck oh fuvk_

_Reaper: you just woke me up from a nap, you asshole, this better be life or death_

_Sombra: It’s life or death_

_Sombra: specifically, mine_

_Sombra: I pissed off Moira_

_Reaper: hold on, I’m getting another txt_

_Reaper: OOOOOOOOH CHILD_

_Reaper: YOU DUN FUCKED UP_

_Reaper: “You look flatter than normal” ?!_

_Reaper: DO YOU WANT TO DIE?!?!?!?!!_

_Sombra: I KNOW_

_Sombra: HELP ME_

_Sombra: I WANT TO LIVE_

_Reaper: …I dunno, there were all those times with the door_

_Sombra: Gabe, I swear to god_

_Sombra: I will release every single embarrassing thing you have EVER done in your miserable life if you don’t help me_

_Reaper: …_

_Reaper: Well, I WAS going to help, but now?_

_Reaper: You’re on your own_

Sombra grabbed her pillow and screamed into it. Fuck today!

  

* * *

 

 

Moira adjusted her grey wig again once she got out of the taxi. She had bobby pinned the fuck out of it to help ensure it would stay on her head, but it still felt like it wasn’t quite right.

 

She inwardly sighed. Kakashi wasn’t her favorite Naruto character but she liked him more than Tobi and the cosplay did cover most of her face. With the grey wig, angled headband covering one eye and the dark mouth and nose mask, it would be difficult for anyone to know who she was at all. She was a little worried that her uncovered eye was the red one, and therefore someone would tell her that she cosplayed wrong, but she had forgotten her colored contacts to correct it.

 

She would have to double check her list and see if maybe she forgot to put it on the list in the first place.

Or maybe one of her animals absconded with it. One of them (or maybe they all worked together, Moira wasn’t sure) liked to scoot small things under the couches and bed.

 

Sombra shifted her weight from one foot to the other fretfully, fiddling with the strap of her backpack with one hand, drawing Moira’s attention.

 

“So uh, can we break the pact of silence and just get this over with? I know I pissed you off but I didn’t mean to be a dick and please don’t tell Max or Akande,” Sombra rambled pleadingly.

 

Moira huffed. She wasn’t going to rat Sombra out to Maximilien or Akande over that faux pas. If she had a euro for every time someone made disparaging remarks about her appearance, she’d have enough money to self-fund her experiments. She just needed to vent to Reaper, who incidentally recommended that she delay telling Sombra that so she could squirm for a while. She decided to take his advice.

 

Moira dug out the two badges with lanyards from a pocket and tossed one at Sombra.

 

“Here’s your badge,” Moira explained as Sombra caught it. “Don’t lose it or you’ll pay for the replacement with your own paycheck. Make sure it’s visible. We’re mostly going shopping today so you can learn the layout for tomorrow. I’ll teach you basic con and cosplay etiquette too so you can tell people off when they deserve it.”

 

Then she started off towards the convention hall entrance, slipping her own lanyard around her neck.

 

Sombra scrambled to keep up on her shorter legs.

 

“Hey! You didn’t answer me! Moira!”

 

Moira slowed down a tad so Sombra could walk by her side.

 

“Do you plan to yell my name all the time? You do realize that I’m going to lengths to not be recognized here?”

 

Sombra pouted. “Fine. What should I call you?”

 

“Morrigan.”

 

“Morrigan?”

 

“Yes, MysteriousMoonMorrigan is my handle for all my cosplay social media accounts, but it’s a bit of a mouthful so Morrigan will do.”

 

“Yes, I know about your cosplay page, but that’s so-“ started Sombra and then she seemed to think better of it. “Never mind. You can call me Lizzie.”

 

“Grand.”

 

They lapsed back into silence as they stepped through the entrance doors. There were people congregated into small groups along the walls and there was a small river of people walking towards the left following arrows lit up in the floor. Moira guided them to merge with the river, ending up behind a set of what looked like beginner cosplayers.

 

Moira smiled behind her mask. What they lacked in technical skill, they had made up in effort and heart. She could tell what characters they were (a newly released anime about magical school girls battling aliens with musical instruments) and they had made the cosplay by hand as far as Moira could tell. Moira wasn’t much of a seamstress or crafty person. She bought or commissioned everything she needed for her cosplays (mostly from Reaper, who often needed a sewing project to calm himself down from the idiocy of Talon and/or the newly reformed Overwatch).

 

Sombra interrupted her train of thought by asking, “So what are we doing today, exactly?”

 

“First we go to prop check, then we’ll go to the dealer’s hall and artist’s alley. There’s a classic anime photo shoot at 2 which should include Naruto but I might pass. There’s a panel at 4 I would like to go to. At some point I guess we’ll need to eat. We can take breaks as we need. There’s a small rave tonight if you want to go, but I typically don’t bother. But mostly this is a shopping day. I’ve got a list of items we’ll need to keep an eye out for.”  

 

“That sounds…fun?”

 

Moira rolled her eyes as she led them towards the prop check. Sombra was trying to be diplomatic, she would give her that. Meanwhile, her two foam kunai were tagged with small red zip ties without any issues or snide comments from the volunteers behind the desk.

 

“So what was that for?” Sombra asked as they started towards the entrance. “Why not use real knife thingies?”

 

“They do it to make sure that people don’t bring in real weapons. And the tags are to show that your weapon has been checked and is in fact just a harmless prop.”

 

“What happens if people don’t do that?”

 

“I’m not entirely sure… I’ve never done it, personally. I suspect they’ll direct you to prop check first with a verbal warning and escalate from there. Maybe confiscate? Maybe expel from convention if the attendee is enough of a bellend.”

 

“And real weapons?”

 

“Expulsion and possibly a call to the local authorities, I imagine.”

 

Sombra hummed thoughtfully.

 

Moira could hear the repeated yells of the entrance volunteers (“Badges out, guys!” and “Make sure we can see the front of your badge!”) as they got closer to the main hall doors. Moira held her badge (with the front side visible) at eye level of the attendants as they passed. She noticed Sombra clumsily trying to mimic her from the corner of her eye.

 

Finally, Moira was finally inside the anime convention.

 

* * *

 

 

Sombra has not been sure what to expect, and this wasn’t too bad so far. Lots of people in crazy costumes running around, but also lots of people dressed like her, casual and normal looking.

 

Speaking of crazy costumes, Moira’s costume wasn’t as ridiculous as she had feared. Yeah, Sombra has no clue what/who she was supposed to be, but at least it didn’t involve the FREAKING YELLOW TENTACLES Moira had been assembling last night. Sombra made a mental note to never look at Moira’s browser history until they invented brain bleach.

 

Moira, somehow knowing when Sombra was thinking about her, said, “Let’s get started. Lots of booths to peruse.”

 

 And _Dios mio_ was the skinny bitch not joking about that.

 

In addition to a fuck ton of people, the hall was also filled with booths and stalls. Rows and rows of them all filled to the brim with wares. Some had plushies covering the tables (including ones that were that were huge!), while others had statuettes and little colorful boxes of tiny statues on tables. Some had fake weapons out for sale ranging from daggers and swords to very realistic replicas of rifles and light pistols. And that was just the start.

 

Moira reached into a pocket and withdrew a piece of paper. “Here’s the things we need to get today. Well… assuming that there’s a dealer with them here. I hope your backpack is mostly empty.”

 

“Why not just buy online?” asked Sombra, baffled.

 

“International shipping continues to lose packages and be overpriced and slower than a geriatric snail, that’s why. Besides,” replied Moira, “sometimes you don’t know you want something until you see it.”

 

“Ok, fair enough,” Sombra conceded, “but why did you write it on paper? The ancient Egyptians and Chinese want their tech back.”

 

Moira’s one visible eye rolled in sarcasm, “Possibly because it was convenient at the time. At any rate, take a picture on your phone or type it into your own holopad, I don’t care. So long as you are actually looking for the items.” 

 

Sombra dutifully took a picture but after skimming over the items they were supposed to be looking for decided that she wasn’t going to other even pretending to help. She didn’t know what any of it was or looked like anyway. “One punch man statuette – reboot ok, reprint ok but prefer vintage original”? What the hell did that even mean? A small figure of some guy punching…something? _Dios Mio_.

 

Moira quietly led them through the stalls, her one red eye scanning over each booth and its wares. Sombra followed her as she led them up and down the aisles, checking each side for … whatever it was that they were looking for. Sombra tended to want to linger at the weapon/prop tables, finding them oddly fascinating. A lot of them were guns and sword that obviously would be too bulky, unwieldy, too covered with random details to actually function as a weapon. But they were impressive to look at, and many of them were much lighter than they looked, considering Sombra saw one tiny girl pick up what looked like a claymore with lots of spikes and fake jewels on it with one hand and twirl it effortlessly. So much effort into something that was useless.

 

Sombra was not even pretending to look for anything on the list at the tables and stalls, preferring to people watch and occasionally check her phone for new targets. So far, most of the booths had terrible cyber security, and she had caught a few juicy text conversations that the convention’s Wi-Fi was facilitating. Whoever Ben was, he was going to have a bad time once his girlfriend found him. Sneaking off to a girl’s (that he had just met) hotel room for a drink while the girlfriend was attending a panel? He was either stupid or ballsy. Or both.

 

Sombra wasn’t really watching Moira shop, so much as keeping the tall idiot in her line of sight and then just follow her while still concentrating on her phone. So she wasn’t really prepared when Moira suddenly stopped and she ran right into Moira’s back, nearly dropping her phone in the process.

 

“Hey! What’s the deal?”

 

Moira ignored Sombra’s protest, in favor of talking to two extremely animated women in front of her.

 

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god!” Said one as the other babbled, “You did Kakashi! I love Kakashi! I wasn’t expecting to see any other Naruto cosplayers except for us! Aaaaaaaaah!!”

 

 The first woman was in an obnoxiously orange outfit with bright blonde hair and the other was in an obnoxiously pink outfit with pink hair.

 

“Ah, it’s always nice to find someone else from the series you’re cosplaying isn’t it?” agreed Moira.

 

“Can we take a picture?!” exclaimed pink.

 

“Yes yes! Let’s do a picture! Ahhh! The ninjas with their teacher! Ahh and you’re even taller than us too, it’ll look great!!” added orange.

 

Moira chuckled. “Of course! But we probably shouldn’t block the aisle…”

 

Sombra followed the group of three weirdos out of the aisle towards a clear spot along the outer wall of the hall. Pink and orange were chattering non-stop and Moira was adding to the conversation (when she could get a word in edgewise). Sombra had no idea what the hell they were talking about, but whatever. At least Moira was visibly happy now. Maybe if she kept Moira happy long enough, Akande and Maximilien wouldn’t find out about barely-awake-Sombra’s less-than-polite comment this morning.

 

Sombra watched amused, as Moira took selfies with pink and orange, her long arms good for getting all three in the frame comfortably. This went on for a few different poses (and with three different phones, Moira’s, pink’s, and orange’s) before Moira called out, “Lizzie? Can you take a few pictures for us, please?”

 

Sombra started at Moira blankly for a second before remembering what that meant. “Oh um, ok.”

 

Pink handed Sombra her phone, already unlocked and camera app opened. “You just need to push the button! The auto focus is a little weird though, sorry. My phone’s a little broken.” 

 

Sombra fought back the urge to slip a virus onto the phone just for that. Of course she only had to push the button to take the picture, she wasn’t stupid.

 

Moira did some weird pose with the two fake dagger things she had in her hands. Her knees were bent and her body looked like a coiled spring ready to snap forward. Pink and orange didn’t have the dagger things, but also did weird hand poses and the action ready poses.

 

Sombra got all three idiots in the frame and then pushed the button.

 

Nothing happened.

 

Just as Sombra confusedly looked at the camera and pointed it to the floor, the fake click of the camera shutter sounded and the camera app revealed that she had taken a very blurry picture of her own feet.

 

“Uhh,” Sombra started eloquently, “It didn’t work?”

 

“If the auto focus doesn’t select something, you gotta click on one of our faces to make it work, or else it does weird things,” giggled pink.

 

“Oh.” Sombra tried again. This time, she selected pink’s face and then was about to click the button when a voice sounded to her right, “Oh wow! Naruto cosplayers! I love your cosplays! Can I take a picture too?”

 

Sombra turned to look at the newcomer. Another casually dressed person like her with his phone out in his hand.

 

“Of course,” came Moira’s voice seemingly unconcerned. She was still holding her pose without trouble but pink and orange were struggling.

 

And then suddenly there were three more people standing next to Sombra with their phones out snapping away.

 

Sombra shook her head and finally took a picture on pink’s phone. Hopefully, that would be the end of it and she could go back to finding new targets or at least entertaining ones like Ben.

 

But then orange handed over her phone. And then they changed poses (Moira had pulled out what looked like some Japanese romance novel from somewhere while Sombra had not been looking. Was this woman really a witch?!) as Moira pretended to read the book, the orange one mimed laughing at her and the pink one just looked exasperated with them both.

 

Sombra assumed it made sense to them because she had no idea what was going on. She dutifully kept taking pictures though. Thankfully Moira’s and orange’s phones weren’t as stupid as pink’s. After what had to have been 10 minutes taking pictures, the other people taking pictures thanked them and left.

 

“Are you coming to the shoot today at 2?! We need all the classic anime people there we can get!!” started pink as Moira sat down, leaning against the wall.

 

“I’m not sure, but I’ll try,” stated Moira.

 

“Awww ok,” pouted orange, “well, hopefully we see you there! Oh! Do you have a cosplay handle or something? I wanna tag you in the pics.”

 

“No, it’s fine,” Moira said, “I don’t have one.”

 

Sombra glanced at her but kept her features as neutral as possible. Why was Moira lying?

 

“You should get one! But anyways, hope to see you at 2! Byeeeeee! Have a good time!”

 “Yeah byeeeeee!”

 

And then finally pink and orange wandered off.

 

“So is it always going to be like that?” asked Sombra as Moira pulled out the list of items again. People were passing by but no one was really paying attention to them anymore. Sombra plopped herself next to Moira, leaning against the wall.

 

“Sometimes. Sometimes they just want a selfie. A photo shoot is a lot like that, but with more people.”

 

“Are we going to the one at 2?”

 

“Possibly, still not sure if you’re up for that yet. And I’m not allowed to let myself get recognized or tagged in pictures. Also, it will probably be outside and I’ll be dying of heat stroke.”

 

And there was the question of tagging again. Moira had a cosplay handle, why was she not jumping up and down using it at every opportunity? Wasn’t that what the pictures were for? For internet bragging rights? With those questions in mind, Sombra asked, “Why exactly are we being so careful anyway? Haven’t you gone to these before?”

 

Moira sighed. “It’s… not worth worrying about.”

 

Sombra narrowed her eyes.

 

Moira sighed again and rolled her shoulder. “There’s some concern… that I might be uh… bothered by?” Moira seemed to be struggling with finding the right word. “Yes, bothered by… certain individuals and/or groups. The security team found that they… appear to be stalking my cosplay accounts for intel on my whereabouts.”

 

Sombra smirked. So Moira had just pissed off some people and needed to lie low for a bit. Typical.

 

“Maybe you shouldn’t piss so many people off, you know?”

 

Moira gave her a pointed look. “Only after you follow your own advice.”

 

Sombra’s smirk fell. Touché.

 

“Besides,” Moira continued looking back at the piece of paper. “If that was all, no one would be worried. No, they are much more interested in my work.”

 

Sombra’s brows furrowed. Shouldn’t Moira be happy that someone was taking interest in her work besides Oasis and Talon? “And that’s a problem…how?”

 

Moira kept staring at the paper. “I… they… it’s not the kind of… interest that I wanted for my work.”

 

Sombra waited for Moira to continue, but she seemed to be content to remain silent. Sombra wasn’t even sure that she was seeing the paper anymore. Moira seemed to be staring through it now, lost in thought. Okay, that was weird.

 

Well, whatever, screw it. Sombra didn’t think that anyone would be willing to scour a convention full of weirdos just to find Moira anyway. She’d play along though, if it meant Moira would lighten up. “Well, don’t you worry, I’ll protect you.”

 

“Thank you, Lizzie.”  

 

“No problem, Morri- hey wait! Shouldn’t we call you something else?”

 

Moira shrugged. “Maybe? But at least this way I can still sort of use my cosplay handle. It’s what I use with Reaper too for these conventions. Makes me feel like this is a normal convention.”

 

Sombra nodded. She didn’t quite get it, but Moira obviously loved coming here and dressing up enough to risk being stalked and bothered by possible psychos.

 

But she was going to have a very long talk/rant with Maximilien and Akande as soon as possible about telling her all the fucking mission details, what the actual fuck?! They had said that Moira didn’t need protection! (Reaper would get a pass for the moment because she needed him for advice on how to get through this with as much sanity as possible. Later though, he was getting a door slammed on him. Repeatedly.)

 

For now, though, Sombra checked the time on her phone. 11:30 am. A bit early for lunch, but maybe getting food and water into Moira would help get her mind off of… stuff. And give time for Sombra to process and verify some things.

 

“Come on, chica.” Sombra stood up and dusted off her jeans. “Let’s go eat. I’m fucking starving.”


	5. The First Day - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We have to get it for Reaps! He’ll totally lose his mind, haha!”
> 
>  
> 
> Giving Reaper a body pillowcase with a highly detailed drawing of Soldier:76 clad only in what were possibly the tightest black boxer briefs in existence and his signature red visor with face mask would definitely make him lose his mind alright.
> 
>  
> 
> Moira would pay good money to see that reaction.
> 
>  
> 
> Did that make her a bad friend?
> 
>  
> 
> Probably.
> 
>  
> 
> Oh well, totally worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm debating putting in the tag - implied Reaper / Soldier but there's no real romance in this fic? It's more as a joke between the characters? and kind of an subtle/oblique one? I dunno. I'm debating the same for an implied McCree/ Hanzo tag too... thoughts?
> 
> Also. I FUCKING LOVE MOIRA'S DANCE. (I call it the nooooodle dance because she's so long and floppy that it reminds me of a wiggly noodle). I know people wanted her to do an irish step dance or something but when I saw it it i felt like I had so many of my perceptions about her being validated. Like, I could talk for days about it... but you guys probably don't want to hear it... I need to get to making that tumblr so I can post those feels into the void...

Lunch was several overpriced snack-ish foods and a few bottles of water. Moira had not been hungry but once she was done had discovered that she had eaten more than she thought she had: one small container of fruit, one bag of veggie chips, and a parfait. Sombra looked smugly happy about it, still eating her turkey sandwich and bag of chips.

 

Moira wouldn’t be surprised if she picked up that food trick from Reaper. He’d often put small food things in front of her and then distract her with talking so she wouldn’t pay attention until she had eaten it all.

 

Sombra had been busy texting someone ever since she had announced that she was hungry. Moira was willing to bet that she was texting Reaper for advice. Moira wasn’t upset by this, Sombra was more than capable of texting and holding a conversation at the same time. Besides, Reaper would appreciate the texts as a weird sort of inclusion to the trip.

 

Hopefully his mission was going well, even with all of these interruptions.  She wasn’t even sure what he was doing. Moira didn’t pay attention to other people’s missions unless she was suddenly added to them. It was better that way.

 

Speaking of missions, Sombra seemed to be treating the con and cosplay etiquette conversation like the set up to an infiltration job. She had wanted to know pretty much everything and periodically would repeat it back with questions.

 

“So,” mumbled Sombra, still chewing on a half mouthful of turkey sandwich, “Basically, the rules amount to: don’t be a dick. Ask permission for pictures, ask permission to touch a person, prop or piece of cosplay, don’t be a creeper, don’t ask people sitting down for pictures, don’t block walkways, shower everyday but don’t drown yourself in heavy scents, be nice or at least polite to people, don’t get into fights, don’t be a dick to people who have a shit costume, watch for and call out creepers, don’t trash the venue, don’t monopolize people’s time, everyone has the right to say ‘no’ to you and vice versa. Except for security, you need to listen to them. Is that everything?”

 

The wording on some of those were not what Moira would have chosen, but it was close enough. “There’s a few more if you’re the one in cosplay, but you aren’t, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”

 

“Cool. Is there a map of this place?” Sombra had finished her sandwich and switched to work on the chips.  

 

“There’s an app with one, as well as a schedule for panels and official photoshoot times,” Moira pulled up the app in question on her phone and slid it across the table to Sombra. “You can just look at mine for now.”

 

Sombra mumbled something that vaguely sounded like “Gracias” through a mouth full of chips. She wiped her fingers on a napkin from the small pile of them she had stolen from the concession stand before picking up Moira’s phone and tapping away.

 

Moira pulled down her mask to take a sip of water and scanned the room with her one visible eye. So far, everything was fine. Truth be told, she wasn’t too worried about being found by her stalkers, but it never hurt to be cautious. Also, Reaper would never let her hear the end of it if she got caught by _those_ idiots. She replaced her mask immediately after drinking.

 

“Why do you have a folder that’s over 50 Gig titled ‘Anime memes to annoy people with’?” Sombra stated out of nowhere.

 

Damn, she even knew better than to willingly give Sombra her phone, and yet she had done it anyway. She should have done all of this last night by taking Sombra’s phone to show her the app, but she had forgotten about it. Bollocks.  Oh well, time to just roll with it.

 

“I’ve been saving them for years, just in case I ever get invited to a chatroom that a secret organization should never have made in the first place.”

 

Sombra looked up at her with a mischievous smirk on her face. “I am SO starting a chatroom for all of us once we get back. I want to see these memes in action.”

 

Moira smiled behind her mask. “And who will be invited to this chat?”

 

“You and me for starters, obviously. Then Widow and Mister Edgy Bedsheet for sure. Probably Akande. Maybe other people if I feel like it. Maybe I’ll set up a few of them for different groups of people, I dunno quite yet.”

 

“You’re going to be the admin and moderator; I assume?”

 

“Fuck yeah! I’m going to set it up, I get dibs.”

 

The thought of Sombra as an admin sent a shiver down Moira’s spine. God knows she would abuse that power. The question would be how. Still, Moira supposed it was fair enough that she got to be admin if she set it up.

 

Maximilien would probably kill (literally) to be in that chatroom too, what with his sudden interest in “team cohesion” and all. Moira wasn’t sure what he was up to, but considering this whole trip and its expenses were covered by him, he seemed rather serious about it. Or at least, serious enough to drop a pretty penny (and a few ugly ones too). However, including him in the chatroom was up to Sombra’s discretion as far as Moira was concerned. Let her deal with the fallout if he finds out he wasn’t invited.

 

Sombra passed back Moira’s phone and gathered up the trash from their meal. “Let me throw all this away and then we can go back to the dealer’s hall.”

 

With the trash thrown away, they wandered back towards the dealer’s hall.

 

* * *

 

 

Moira’s red eye checked over the list impulsively at this point. She had gotten almost everything Akande wanted (except for one statute that was apparently only available in Japan because of bullshit reasons or whatever) and few things for herself as well. He had promised to pay her back for it all, which she was definitely going to follow up on because this had been an expensive endeavor.

 

She let her gaze wander over to Sombra. Moira felt a little bad about making Sombra carry everything they had bought in her backpack, but not enough to offer to carry it for a while. It had started off mostly empty, but now it was clearly bulging with various things inside (mostly Akande’s items).

 

Despite the large and bulky backpack, Sombra seemed a lot more chipper after the early lunch. She was people watching more than playing on her phone and had even asked a few cosplayers for pictures. She was also actively asking questions about things for sale. The body pillows had been one slightly awkward conversation, given most of them were of the borderline “naughty” variety. (Sombra apparently didn’t see the point in it being borderline. “Just show the juicy bits already, jeez! You might as well commit to it if people like me find out later.”)

 

Moira smiled under her mask. This was going pretty well. She had been worried, especially after the rocky start of yesterday and this morning. Maybe she should treat Sombra to something as a show of gratitude? The artist alley section of the con might have some jewelry that she would like. Or maybe a better hat. Moira wasn’t sure what was going on with Sombra’s hair and hat choices, but the poor thing really needed an upgrade from bad peroxide blonde and a threadbare grey slouch hat.

 

If worst came to worst, she could commission Reaper to make a little outfit for Sombra’s teddy bear. Maybe a miniature version of Sombra’s normal uniform? That would be adorable.

 

Moira was snapped out of her thoughts by Sombra tugging on her sleeve with a maniacal grin on her face.

 

“Morrigan. Morrigan, hey! Hey, Morri! Come look at this next booth!”  Sombra babbled.

 

“Ok, ok, I’m coming.” Moira let herself be led to the booth across the aisle, noting its banner proudly proclaiming that they made custom body pillows in less than 24 hours. Huh, she’d never seen that before. It must be a new business.

 

Sombra’s face was spilt into a Cheshire Cat grin as she pointed at one of the screens on the table displaying some of the various artwork they had available for the pillowcases. “Look! Are you thinking that I’m thinking?” she said with a mischievous tone.

 

Moira’s brows rose sharply when she realized what Sombra was pointing at. Was that-

 

“We have to get it for Reaps! He’ll totally lose his mind, haha!”

 

Giving Reaper a body pillowcase with a highly detailed drawing of Soldier:76 clad only in what were possibly the tightest black boxer briefs in existence and his signature red visor with face mask would definitely make him lose his mind alright.

 

Moira would pay good money to see that reaction.

 

Did that make her a bad friend?

 

Probably.

 

Oh well, totally worth it.

 

Sombra was now excitedly talking to the Omnic in an anime print Hawaiian shirt manning the booth. “How much is it for a custom pillow and how soon could we get it? Can we get it shipped?”

 

“There is a small base fee for the art (we make sure that all artwork can be traced back to original artist, who gets a small cut). However, we offer a range of different options for the case itself as well as the filling, so it will depend on the exact combination. We do offer the ability to have it made within 24 hours, however there is a surcharge for that. We can do shipping to most countries, but there will be a surcharge for that as well.” The Omnic started tapping at the screen in front of Sombra to bring up a page with various options and their prices.

 

“Awww man,” muttered Sombra who was looking more closely at the screen on the table. “They’re really expensive… I don’t think it’s worth it to pay that just for a joke…he’ll just rip it up…”

 

“You know,” started Moira slowly, “I do have this credit card from Max to help cover the costs of anything we need to make this trip enjoyable…”

 

Sombra perked up. “I think this would definitely help you enjoy the convention, Morri.” Sombra’s face was going back to that crazed grin.

 

“Indeed. It might be the one thing that keeps me from having a bad time here.” Moira could feel the matching maniacal grin forming on her face. Thank god for her face mask. She’d probably inadvertently creep Sombra out if she saw that smile on her face.

 

The omnic gave a pleased hum and stepped to the side to attend to a few other potential customers. “If you have any questions, please let me or my fellow workers know.”

 

Sombra whirled back towards the table. “Do you think we should get it with the luxury filling? Oooh, and maybe a really nice fabric!”

 

“Let’s do a case that’s double sided. Does that one come with art for the other side?”

 

Sombra shook her head. “Just this one.”

 

“That’s fine, we’ll just have to find a suitable image for the other side.” Moira started typing into the search bar of adjacent screen.

 

Soldier: 76 – 4 results

 

Moira gave a disappointed huff. The one Sombra had found was one of the results, and honestly, it was the best one. The others weren’t proportioned correctly and weren’t as well drawn overall.

 

“Do they just pull these from the depths of the internet?” she scowled.

 

“Awwww. Those ones suck ass. Should we just go back to just one sided?” asked Sombra, peeking over at her screen.

 

Moira rapped her fingernails on the screen lightly.

 

“Let me try something.” She cleared the search bar and typed in a new query.

 

Strike Commander Morrison – 57 results

 

Holy shite. She hadn’t expected that to work. People had way too much time on their hands, that was for sure.

 

Sombra cackled at her side. “Holy fuuuuuuuck! Some of these are ridiculous!”

 

Moira had to agree. Some of the “showing the juicy bits” variety of artwork contained features that were comically large (and frighteningly large if one stopped to think about it for too long). Some showed the poor man looking coyly embarrassed in poorly fitting women’s lingerie. Others showed him smirking while fully dressed, his trousers unfastened and his fingers skirting below the waistband of his pants. Putting cat ears on him seemed to be a running theme, too, oddly enough. And people called _her_ imagination twisted. Good Lord.

 

“Which one would be best? We gotta maximize the impact of this!” Sombra was gleefully paging through the options staring at the screen with precision focus.

 

“I- I don’t know,” Moira confessed. “As far as I know they never had a relationship outside of just being comrades in arms and whatever passes for friendship between two emotionally constipated men.”

 

“Hmmmm,” Sombra tapped a nail on the table while she kept looking. “Well, Let’s just see if anything… _Pops_ out at us?” prompting a groan from Moira.

 

Sombra kept paging through the results with Moira watching until finally, it happened.

 

Sombra found it. The perfect image. They looked at each other for a few beats, then back to the image, then back to each other. Moira nodded, not trusting her voice.

 

Sombra added it to the back side of the pillow case order and clicked “add to cart”.

 

“He’s going to kill us,” Sombra said in a daze.

 

“He is,” Moira agreed reflexively.

 

“We’re going to die a horrible death and then go straight to hell.”

 

“Most assuredly.”

 

They stood there in silence. Moira’s brain was still trying to process the image, but also trying desperately to not think about it.

 

“Worth it,” said Sombra, with conviction.

 

“Absolutely,” affirmed Moira.

 

Silence reigned again before Moira blurted out, “Help me make one for Ziegler. If I die, I might as well go out a bloody legend.”

 

“Fuck yeah.”

 

* * *

  

Sombra hummed happily to herself as she fussed in the mirror. The new hat Moira had bought for her in artist alley was so pretty and soft. It was a handmade hand-dyed knitted purple and black colored beanie. Moira had also spotted with her red eagle eye a small enamel pin that looked similar to the purple sugar skull Sombra used as her calling card. Sombra was currently trying to figure out the best placement for it on her new hat.

 

And… there. Perfect. She finished attaching it and smoothed out the knit material.

 

She snuck a glance at Moira who was in the process of stripping off the outer layers of her cosplay in the hotel room. Other than the rocky start this trip, Moira had actually been fun to hang out with. Once Moira had declared that they were done with that god awful list, the shopping had been pretty interesting (especially with the body pillows). At a few booths in the artist alley, Moira stopped to chat with the sellers/artists about their work. Apparently she had several pieces from each of them and showed them pictures of their items in the home and office(s) on her phone.

 

Witnessing Moira being a normal, chatty, not arrogantly superior person was kind of weird. But kinda cool too. She made jokes and small talk with sellers and chatted with Sombra as they walked. Sombra decided that happy, relaxed Moira was a halfway decent person. Too bad she didn’t seem happy or relaxed most of the time.

 

They had continued to wander around, occasionally being stopped by people for photos of Moira’s costume. Generally, they had been polite, if maybe a little loud. One had apparently ticked Moira off by saying that she should take out her red contacts, because it wasn’t how that character looked, the red was not both eyes or something. Moira had tensed, but otherwise politely, if maybe a bit sharply, told him that she would take that into consideration. Sombra wasn’t sure if she should step in and tell him to step off, but she ultimately left it alone. Moira had it under control. She did, however, loudly whisper “What a dick” as they walked away from him. Moira had given her an indecipherable look at that, but said nothing.

 

The panel had been… not Sombra’s thing. It was about something about the future of voice acting with regards to …some factors that Sombra didn’t catch. She wasn’t interested and she didn’t want to waste brain space learning about it. But Moira had noticed the fidgeting and whispered that she could leave as long as she came back before the panel was done at 4:45 PM. Sombra took that offer and ran with it. She went out and stretched her legs by wandering around the artist’s alley some more. There she noticed these super cute handmade derpy spider earrings and immediately bought them for Amélie. They were the special type of kitschy handmade that Amélie would rather drop dead than actually wear. It would be fun to see her reaction though.

 

Speaking of Amélie… Sombra’s phone buzzed, heralding the arrival of a new text message.

 

_Widowmaker: How is the trip with Dr. Bowie-Bitch?_

_Sombra: actually not that bad_

_Sombra: well ok, this morning was fucked_

_Sombra: but it got better_

_Widowmaker: I heard about this morning_

_Widowmaker: I was hoping I would finally get the order to kill you for disrespecting a council member_

_Widowmaker: oh, well_

_Widowmaker: maybe next time_

 

Ah Amélie, the master of deadpan humor. Hopefully when her brain got unfucked someday, that sense of humor would live on.

 

_Sombra: jajajajaja good one Amélie_

_Widowmaker: I was not joking_

_Widowmaker: Besides, I thought you were only going to try to get more ‘dirt’ on her_

_Sombra: I had lots of dirt on her before this trip!_

_Sombra: I just can’t use it_

_Sombra: for a lot of reasons_

_Sombra: and Akande told me that if anything about this leaked ever, he’d hold me accountable_

_Sombra: and I like living_

_Sombra: and it’s honestly been kind of interesting to see what people do here_

_Sombra: and once she explained to me the rules and what was going on_

_Sombra: I felt a lot better_

_Sombra: maybe I was just nervous cuz I didn’t know what was going on, you know?_

_Sombra: plus, she’s actually not that bad when she’s happy_

_Sombra: like, she played along with my jokes and shit_

_Widowmaker: Good for you that you can connect with her_

_Widowmaker: I’ll just be over here getting pills shoved down my throat and ugly sweaters forced upon me_

_Sombra: …_

_Sombra: no one’s perfect?_

_Sombra: besides the Show Me Your Kitties sweater is amazing, and you know it!_

_Widowmaker: …_

 

Uh oh, “…” from Amélie usually preceded bad things. Maybe it was time to change topic.

 

_Sombra: ANYWAY_

_Sombra: How are you and Reaps doing?_

_Widowmaker: Fine I guess_

_Widowmaker: I don’t know_

_Widowmaker: Is boredom a feeling?_

_Widowmaker: I’m up here on a roof just watching for some asshole to come out_

_Sombra: hey, could be worse_

_Sombra: you could switch spots with Reaper_

_Widowmaker: I cannot fit into air vents, fool_

_Widowmaker: I am just glad that you are not here_

_Sombra: What?! WHY?!_

_Widowmaker: You’d probably turn on the fan system to fuck with him_

_Widowmaker: then I’d have to deal with him bitching about that on top of being bored_

 

Well, damn. Amélie had her figured out. She would do that in a heartbeat.

 

_Sombra: Fair enough_

_Sombra: But other than being stuck in a vent, how’s Reaper?_

_Widowmaker: Fine. Bored I think._

_Widowmaker: I don’t know how he is using his phone while a cloud of smoke in the vents_

_Widowmaker: but he is and he is talkative today_

_Sombra: OH RLY? What about?_

 

The next statements took a long time for Amélie to send, the three dots indicating that she was typing flashing repeatedly. Maybe she was rewriting it several times?

 

_Widowmaker: we’ve been chatting about people he used to know_

_Widowmaker: he said used to go see ballet in Paris sometimes_

_Widowmaker: There was a ballet dancer there that was very good_

_Widowmaker: That she married someone he knew and so he got tickets for free_

_Widowmaker: but he didn’t know anything about ballet other than it was ‘pretty’_

_Widowmaker: uncultured man_

 

Sombra didn’t know what to say to that. What was Gabe doing? Wasn’t he supposed t _o not_ mention the past around her? What would happen if the other council members found out? She glanced over at Moira who was laying on her bed, eyes closed. Good, she wasn’t paying attention. God knows how she’d react to Gabe potentially fucking up Amélie by mentioning her past as a dancer.

 

Oh, speaking of dancing, didn’t Moira say there was a rave tonight?

 

“Hey,” said Sombra. “Hey, wake up! Moira!”

 

“What?” Moira responded in a darkly annoyed tone.

 

“We going to the rave? I wanna bust a move.”

 

Moira cracked open an eye. “You’re more than welcome to as long as you don’t do anything stupid. I, however, will stay here and rest. Maybe order some take out.”

 

“Whaaaat? You don’t wanna go dancing? Why not?” Sombra whined.

 

“I’m tired, Sombra. As much as I love these cons, they take a lot out of me. So many…” Here Moira waved a long fingered hand dismissively, “ _People._ ”

 

“I bet you CAN’T dance and that’s the real reason.” Maybe if she annoyed Moira enough, she’d go just to shut her up.

 

Moira turned her head to glare at Sombra fully. “I can dance. People don’t like dancing with me, but I can dance.”

 

“Pfft yeah right. What, you do some Irish river dancing bullshit where you only move your ankles and feet? No one wants to do that.”

 

“No, Sombra. It’s more the opposite problem. I am tall and long limbed and have accidentally hit people in the face more times that I can count.”

 

Sombra suddenly got the mental image of Moira flailing like a drunken noodle boned giraffe with limbs going everywhere. God, she would kill for that on video.

 

Moira turned her head back to its original position and closed her eyes again. “At any rate, whether or not I can dance doesn’t change the fact that I am tired and want to rest.”

 

Sombra pouted silently. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Moira was supposed to spring up and prove Sombra wrong about not being able to dance by going to the rave.

 

“I’m not stopping you from going, Sombra. Go. Have a grand time. I don’t care. But I will be staying here, taking a shower, changing, ordering take out and _resting up for tomorrow.”_

 

Sombra huffed and got off her bed. “Fine, but you’ll be missing out on alllll the fun!”

 

Moira waved a hand at her in a shooing motion. “I’ll be just fine. Now shoo. Go wow the crowd with your _brilliant_ dance moves.”

 

Sombra snorted as she exited the hotel room. “Always do!”

 

Man, Moira was going to regret not coming to the rave.


	6. The Second Day - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sombra couldn’t see the girl’s face very well from where she was sitting, but it looked familiar somehow? Also, did she have pink cat whiskers painted on her face or was Sombra just imagining things? Where did she know this girl from? Other than Moira and Reaper she didn’t know any people who dressed up like lunatics for fun outside of Halloween. Well, maybe the cowboy. Did dressing like you came out of a gay cowboy erotic novel count? Probably. Ok, so Moira, Reaper and McCree.
> 
>  
> 
> What was she talking about again? Oh, right. Weirdos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not every convention has a Quiet Room (sometimes called other things like Zen Room) but they are spaces that give con goers a safe, quiet space to catch their breath away from the often noisy, crowded spaces that are a convention. If you are getting overwhelmed at a con, I recommend checking them out to help yourself re-center and relax (also take a break to eat and drink something - you'd be surprised how much may be due to low blood sugar and dehydration). If the con doesn't have one and is held somewhere with multiple floors, try going up to a higher floor, they tend to have less people the more floors you go up. Finding a nice, quiet, out of the way corner to sit in for 5-10 mins can help too. 
> 
> While this is based on my real-life anime con experiences, each con is different, so just be aware that your mileage may vary.

Sombra looked like she was regretting the decision to go to the rave last night. Or at least, that was the impression Moira was getting by the way she was death gripping the paper coffee cup in her hands.

 

“Do we need to get you a refill again, Lizzie?” Moira asked hesitantly.

 

Sombra grunted and took another swig. She was wearing her new hat with pin today but she obviously hadn’t been fully awake when she put it on because the pin was facing off to the side directly above her left ear and her hair was bunched up weirdly under the hat. Her eyes had bags under them, and she was only wearing eyeliner for makeup. Her clothes looked fine, but she looked like she was going to keel over and sleep on the floor at any second.

 

Moira wasn’t sure what time Sombra finally came back from the rave, but it had to have been pretty late. She had gone to bed at midnight herself after unwinding and eating Chinese takeout while video chatting with her omnic neighbor/puppy sitter about the state of her animals.

 

She had left a portion of the takeout for Sombra in the hotel mini-fridge, and stuck a post-it note to the bear Sombra had on her bed telling her about it. That was what friends did right? Make sure to save food for each other? (She got the feeling they were friends now. Maybe. Or at least they were at that weird stage between acquaintances and friends.) But this morning the food was untouched and Sombra was passed out, still in her clothes, face first on top of the teddy bear on her bed.

 

Hopefully the thought still counted in this case.

 

She had also let Sombra sleep in as late as she felt they could before they might start running into traffic issues. Sombra hadn’t even been awake enough to be verbal when Moira gently nudged her awake. She just zombie shuffled her way into the bathroom to get ready. Moira had to go check on her when she hadn’t heard anything in 10 mins after the shower had shut off. Sombra had fallen asleep standing up at the vanity, thankfully still in her towel. Moira gently shook her awake again and shoved the pile of clothes to change into at her. She wasn’t sure what else to do. She had seen everyone important in Talon naked at some point, and while she didn’t give a single fuck about it, she was pretty sure that helping Sombra get dressed when she was mentally out of it would result in being screamed at in Spanish later.

 

Being a nice person was hard. Wait, was she actually being nice if she just didn’t want to get yelled at? Moira didn’t want to dwell on that.

 

Moreover, Moira wasn’t sure what to do besides keep getting refills for Sombra’s coffee. She really needed Sombra to be awake enough to be her seeing eye person and helper today. As much as she’d like to sass Sombra for being an idiot and staying out too late, she knew it wouldn’t help the situation and Sombra was too out of it to really make an impact anyway. So more coffee it was. But at some point Moira would like to finish getting into her cosplay and also move more than 20 meters from the tiny café/refreshment stand they were currently sitting by. She had managed to get partially into costume by herself (the long black professor robe with yellow ‘feet’ tentacles peeking out at the bottom was easy enough to get into) but everything else required a helping hand. The large round head she needed to wear was currently sitting by her feet and she wanted to take off the hat, glasses and kitty mouth patterned face mask she was using to hide her identity in the meantime. Also her arm tentacles portion of her cosplay were only partly hooked up, so they couldn’t do anything other than flop around uselessly and get in the way. When fully connected up, she’d be able to use them to pick up and manipulate objects as easily as her own hands.

 

Thankfully, the coffee did seem to be helping. Sombra seemed a lot more awake now than she did even 15 mins ago. But not awake enough for the brain to mouth filter to kick on apparently.

 

“So what fucking hentai is this from?” croaked Sombra.

 

“Pardon?”

 

Sombra waved at Moira from top to bottom. “You’re dressed as a professor with yellow fucking tentacles. Is it an anime about banging the demon professor for a passing grade?”

 

“No. No, it is not.”

 

Yeah, ok, the teacher character Koro-Sensei that she was dressing as DID look a lot like a yellow octopus demon who had decided to get tenure at a university but the series he was from was not a hentai. Assassination Classroom was such a good anime but Moira wasn’t really sure how to explain it to Sombra. Especially a sleep deprived Sombra with no filter. How could she explain that he was a hero and a villain of the story at the same fucking time? And he was a bit of a pervert yes, but he kept his tentacles to himself and it REALLY WAS NOT A HENTAI, SHE COULD NOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH.

 

Sombra just snorted and mumbled something into her coffee.

 

“What was that?” Moira’s temper flared. Here she was trying to be good and nice and in return she was getting judged for her choice of cosplay by an idiot who didn’t know anything about anime and was half asleep.

 

“I said what are we doing today, boss lady?”

 

The day Moira believed that was what Sombra actually said was the day that she gave up lab research. However, in the interest of keeping relations smooth and actually getting the day started, she decided to move on.

 

“Today there’s another classic anime photo shoot at 3:30 I want to go to but otherwise we don’t have anywhere to be. We haven’t seen the gaming part of the convention and I thought we could go there for a little bit and watch a tournament.”

 

“What time is it now?”

 

Moira glanced at her phone. “11:15.”

 

Sombra groaned and chugged the rest of the coffee. “Let’s fucking go. I’ll have to feed you soon anyway.”

 

Moira rolled her eyes but stood up without protest.

 

As if Sombra was the responsible one here.

 

* * *

 

 

Sombra was a hacker, yes, but she stayed away from hacking in video games as a general rule. She just didn’t see the point in it unless it was to annoy someone in particular. Just play the game! Have fun! That was the whole fucking point! Some escapism in this topsy turvy world gone mad. But people continued to hack in video games. And some select others continued to accuse anyone they couldn’t beat of being a hacker.

 

Assholes ruin everything, and the old school 16 Bit Hero tournament Sombra and Moira were watching was no exception.

 

“At least that stupid blonde hacker girl isn’t playing now,” Sombra heard one asshole whisper to another sitting in front of them.

 

Sombra tensed. She knew that they weren’t talking about her, there was no way they were, but her body and mind went on high alert anyway. She and Moira had just sat down five minutes ago while the current players were finishing up a match. Still, her hair was blonde (at the moment), she was a girl (well, woman), and she was a hacker (the best there ever was, in fact). It was just being cautious at this point.

 

“The one dressed as a gothic Lolita cat maid thing? Yeah, she must be hacking. No one’s that good and not a fucking pro,” Asshole #2 said to Asshole #1.

 

Ok, they definitely weren’t talking about her, mini-crisis averted.

 

“She’ll be back to play after this match though, she made it to the finals. Remember?” Asshole #1 angrily muttered.

 

“I just hope she gets knocked out or removed for cheating before she wins the tourney,” Asshole #2 replied as he folded his arms and slid down his chair like a 5-year-old throwing a tantrum.

 

Interest thoroughly piqued, Sombra turned to Moira, before nearly jumping out of her seat, “Hey Morri-DIOS MIO!”

 

She kept forgetting that Moira’s full costume today was a smiling giant yellow tentacle monster. She kept trying to not think about it, and so every time she looked away and then back at Moira, she’d scare herself on accident.

 

Moira’s concerned voice came into Sombra’s ear piece. “What? What is it?”

 

That was another thing, Sombra kept forgetting that Moira had trouble seeing and hearing in that giant round head on her shoulders. She could speak to and hear Sombra just fine (she apparently had enough foresight to pack two throat mics connected to some old ear bud comms), but her field of vision was shit and she couldn’t distinguish outside noises very well unless it was a quiet room.

 

“ _Dios Mio_ ,” Sombra muttered again as she settled herself back down, “Why did she have to dress up as _that_?”

 

“I can hear you,” Moira drawled in an annoyed tone, “These mics pick up everything you say, Sombra. _Everything._ ”

 

Sombra kept forgetting about that fact too. Deciding to avoid getting into a spat, Sombra pushed forward with her original thought, “Can we stay for the next match? I wanna see the ‘hacker girl’ the idiots in front of us are whining about.”

 

Moira shrugged a shoulder. “Fine by me, but I want to stretch my legs for a bit. I’ll just walk over to that banner and back.” She “pointed” with one of the yellow tentacles’ “fingers” at a banner advertising the event about 30 meters away.

 

“Yeah yeah, I’ll stay here,” Sombra waved Moira off with a hand.

 

Thankfully, they had chosen to sit towards the outer edge of the seating for the tournament so Moira didn’t have to stumble over people as she left.  Almost immediately after Moira started her short walk a small crowd of people descended on her with their cameras out.

 

Sombra debated whether she should step in to help, but mentally shrugged. Moira was a big girl. She could handle herself. She got herself into this situation by choosing to be a weird yellow octopus teacher demon thing and she could figure it out on her own.

 

Sombra preemptively turned down her comm so she wouldn’t hear Moira half-yelling “Yes, you can take a picture” or some variation thereof through her giant costume head to the people all clutching cameras. She shouldn’t be doing that, in case of emergency, but eh. It would be fine.

 

Sombra moved her backpack from the floor to the seat Moira had vacated, then settled back to watch the next set of players for the tournament step onto the stage.

 

One was a tall lanky boy with dark hair and an unfortunate pedo-mustache/goatee but the other was a tiny waif of a girl with blonde hair in pigtails held up by black cat ears and pink bows. She was dressed in a mid-thigh length, ruffle edged black dress with puffy cap sleeves and a pink bow at her throat and another smaller pink bow in the middle of a chain of small pearls laced around her middle. Her stockings were an unusual diamond pattern of dusty dark pink and black. It looked like she was from a really weird Victorian historical drama where the costume manager had only heard rumors about what they wore back then.

 

Sombra couldn’t see the girl’s face very well from where she was sitting, but it looked familiar somehow? Also, did she have pink cat whiskers painted on her face or was Sombra just imagining things? Where did she know this girl from? Other than Moira and Reaper she didn’t know any people who dressed up like lunatics for fun outside of Halloween. Well, maybe the cowboy. Did dressing like you came out of a gay cowboy erotic novel count? Probably. Ok, so Moira, Reaper and McCree.

 

What was she talking about again? Oh, right. Weirdos.

 

The weird girl and the tall lanky guy sat down at their respective computers and arranged the set up to their liking.

 

Sombra racked her brain. Who did she know that was small, female, good enough at gaming to be accused of hacking, and _blonde_? Why was this girl so familiar?

 

The match started and Sombra decided to watch the girl’s play very closely. She wasn’t an expert in 16 Bit Hero (or any video games) but maybe she could spot if 1.) this girl was a hacker or 2.) something about her play style to help figure out who mystery girl was.

 

After about 5 minutes, all Sombra had gleaned was that this girl was pro-level good and that she outclassed her opponent in almost every way imaginable. The match was already over, the girl had won by a landslide, and she was flashing peace signs with her fingers to the crowd while the MC was trying to get some coherent thoughts together.

 

But when the MC finally shoved the microphone in front of the girl’s face, Sombra finally know who it was.

 

“GG! I play to win!” exclaimed the not-so-mysterious-anymore-girl. Sombra froze. She had heard those phrases both in the battlefield and over hacked comm enough to know who that was without question.

 

What?! Why was D.Va here?! Sombra whipped her head around to find Moira, who was thankfully not that far from the last spot Sombra saw her standing. She bolted out of her seat, grabbing her backpack and swinging it onto her back quickly.

 

She tried not to draw too much attention to herself by running, but couldn’t make herself walk either, so she ended up doing a weird powerwalk towards Moira. She made sure to turn the comm in her ear back up so she could actually hear what Moira was saying. Thankfully, Moira was in between pictures and was instead talking to a few people, showing them her tentacles and how they could grab things.

 

“No, I didn’t make them myself,” Moira was explaining to her small crowd, carefully twirling a pen in her tentacle fingers, “I have a few connections that worked with me to make them.”

 

“Morri,” started Sombra urgently, tugging on Moira’s sleeve a little more roughly than she meant to, “I need your help with something.”

 

The giant yellow smiling head turned towards Sombra unnervingly, but Moira’s happy voice chirped, “Oh, Lizzie! I’m sorry, I must have lost track of time talking to these wonderful people. Everyone, this is Lizzie, my seeing-eye friend and handler.”

 

The small crowd murmured their hellos and Sombra felt obligated to dip her head in acknowledgement with a small smile. She turned back to Moira immediately.

 

“Morri, I don’t want to rush you, but I really need your help. Now.” Sombra let go of Moira’s sleeve to grab onto a tentacle and tug.

 

“Alright, alright!”

 

Moira turned to the people gathered around and waved goodbye with her free tentacle. “I need to go help my friend, now, sorry. Thank you for the lovely chat! Bye!”

 

With that the people dispersed and Moira finally gave into Sombra’s incessant tugging away from the tournament.

 

“What’s the matter? Are you alright?” came Moira’s concerned voice through Sombra’s comm.

 

“Is there a quiet spot we can talk more privately?”

 

Moira paused and cocked the giant smiling head to one side. “This convention has a quiet room; we could go there. It’s not completely private, but it’s the best thing besides a bathroom.”

 

“Awesome, ok.” Sombra started to look it up on her phone with her free hand, not letting go of Moira’s tentacle.

 

As she looked for the location, Moira nervously played with her costumes robes with her free tentacle. “Are you sure you are alright? You’re rarely this serious.”

 

“I’m fine, and you’ll see why I’m being serious in a bit. Let’s go.” Sombra started dragging Moira off to the nearest elevator. The stupid quiet room was on the second floor.

 

“Ahh! Not so fast! I’ll trip!” exclaimed Moira, flailing a bit and accidentally smacking some poor guy dressed as a knock-off green Power Ranger with her tentacle.

 

Sombra kept going at the same pace, deciding to just yell out a “Sorry, dude! It’s an emergency!” as an apology to him.

 

It wasn’t a lie. It _was_ an emergency. So she kept tugging Moira towards the elevator, not caring about who she ran over along the way.


	7. The Second Day - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you sure you just don’t want to go home?” asked Sombra gently, “Or at least back to the hotel? I can’t imagine it’ll be any fun staying here now with us jumping out of our skin at every turn. Max will understand. And if he doesn’t I’ll hack him into being a toaster.”
> 
> Moira shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t want to give up yet. I… only get to do this once a year, at best. I don’t want to go back to the real world just yet. Also, what is it with you and toasters?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really am quite nervous about this story, especially from this point on. :S 
> 
> Also, Reaper is the unofficial Dad of Talon. #canon
> 
> EDIT: TUMBLR MADE - https://maximumcatfeels.tumblr.com

“And you are sure it was D.Va?” Moira whispered to Sombra. She has having trouble wrapping her head around it. Why would _she_ be here? Did she like anime? Maybe she was only here for the gaming portion of the convention? Moira drummed her fingernails along the top of her costume’s head sitting next to her on the floor. They had decided to raid some of the snacks Sombra had bought earlier and stowed in her backpack while they talked. So Moira had taken off the gigantic head and one tentacle so she could eat and drink. Sombra had chosen a nice spot on the floor along one of the walls that was mostly shielded from view by the tables and chairs.

 

“Definitely. Do you know why she’s here? Are the Over-idiots the ones stalking your cosplay page?” Sombra whispered back. She was barely picking at her food, much more interested in their discussion.

 

“No and no, actually. She could be here just because she likes going to these sorts of things? Maybe she likes anime too? I have no idea.”

 

“I mean… I guess she could like going to anime conventions, but I always figured she’d go to gaming expos.”

 

Moira nodded and fiddled with her granola bar. She agreed with that assessment. Granted, she didn’t know much about the girl, but everything Talon had in the file on her was pretty much either gaming, movie or Korean army related.

 

“Should we call for backup?” Sombra suggested. “What if she brought more Overwatch people with her?”

 

“No! No.” Moira scrambled for the words, “I don’t want to make a fuss over one girl, especially not when we don’t know what’s going on yet. I don’t want to get any more people involved until we get a better idea of what she’s doing here. I don’t want to _leave_ yet.”

 

Moira knew she was getting too emotional over this, but it was all true. She didn’t want to go home yet. She had been looking forward to this trip and as much as she was occasionally having some rough spots with Sombra, it had been a pretty good holiday from work so far. She didn’t want to leave and she didn’t want to make Talon decide that she could never go to another convention again because she was too terrified at the slightest possibly of danger.

 

At Sombra’s concerned look, Moira took a deep breath and continued, “Please, let’s just make a few plans and backup plans in case she’s here to cause issues, but otherwise continue with our day.”

 

Sombra looked less than impressed with that idea, but nodded. “Okay, boss lady, if you say so.”

 

Moira felt herself relax. This could work, they just needed some basic plans and backup plans in case things didn’t turn out as hoped.  “Alright, so if they are still following some of the basic strategies that they had when I was still there then she’ll be part of a team. The maximum number on the team is six and the minimum is two, but usually its four. If it’s a group of two, it’ll be a reconnaissance mission and they won’t have a medic with them. Four and six man missions usually have one unless there-“

 

Moira stopped mid-sentence as she noticed some people moving to sit down at the table closest to them.

 

Sombra scooted herself closer to Moira until her knee poked Moira in the thigh and whispered, “It’s ok, I think they’re just random people.”

 

Moira forced herself to relax and take a few breaths.

 

“Are you sure you just don’t want to go home?” asked Sombra gently, “Or at least back to the hotel? I can’t imagine it’ll be any fun staying here now with us jumping out of our skin at every turn. Max will understand. And if he doesn’t I’ll hack him into being a toaster.”

 

Moira shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t want to give up yet. I… only get to do this once a year, at best. I don’t want to go back to the real world just yet. Also, what is it with you and toasters?”

 

Sombra opened her mouth to say something, but the conversation from the people sitting at the table made them both freeze in place.

 

“Did you hear? D.Va is here at this con!” said one girl.

 

“Yeah! I heard that she came in a disguise and played in the 16 Bit Hero tournament that just finished. Someone figured out who she was and shouted out her name. She got mobbed by fans. The tournament people were pissed, though, it wasn’t supposed to be for professional gamers,” replied a male-sounding omnic.

 

“Is she still considered a pro gamer? I thought she was with the MEKA in Korea now?” added a third voice, another girl.

 

“I guess so? She still does live streams and tournaments for charity all the time, plus her skills are just as sharp as went she got recruited. At any rate, how did they figure it out? That it was her, I mean?” replied the first girl.

 

“Oh, it’s kind of silly really. She dyed her hair blonde and put on a pretty Lolita dress, but she kept her signature pink triangles on her face. That and she pulled off some of same crazy moves in the tournament that she does in the live streams. Oh, and she also said some of her catch phrases too. You know, like ‘GG’ and ‘I play to win!’ and that stuff. It’s kind of embarrassing that she thought she could get away with sneaking by with so little changes,” explained the male omnic.

 

“Didn’t she used to be in movies too? You’d think she would’ve learned how to go incognito so she wouldn’t be mobbed by people when she was a movie star,” queried the first girl.

 

“Hahahaha, you’re right! Well, at any rate, she got _swarmed_ and so they had to escort her away for her own safety. I don’t know if she’s still here or not. I’m not sure if they’d let her stay or not after that fiasco.” The male omnic sounded disappointed.

 

“Awwwww man, I would have killed for an autograph!” whined the second girl.

 

Sombra and Moira looked at each other in disbelief. Did D.Va really get caught in her disguise?

 

“Well, that might solve the whole problem. If she’s here by herself, then it’s all over,” quipped Sombra.

 

“That’s true,” stated Moira slowly, “but now I’m worried about something else.”

 

At Sombra’s puzzled look, she continued, “I know that, sometimes, our missions against Overwatch get sabotaged for one reason or another, but please explain to me, how do we sometimes _legitimately lose_ to those idiots.”

 

“I have no idea,” replied Sombra, “And I, for one, am ashamed of that fact. And you should be too ‘cause you’re in those missions with the rest of us.”

 

Moira groaned and face palmed with one hand and one tentacle.

 

* * *

 

 

Even with the plans and back up plans made, Sombra felt nervous about staying at the convention. She had managed to talk Moira out of going to the photo shoot at 3 and to wander the halls outside of the dealer’s room instead. There were a lot of people hanging out there which would help protect them in case the Overwatch agents really were here in force. They wouldn’t try anything too stupid with that many potential witnesses and innocent bystanders.

 

It did come with the downside that they would have trouble leaving without being tailed if Overwatch really was here, but Sombra was texting Reaper furiously trying to find a good solution.

 

_Reaper: And you’re sure it was D.Va?_

 

Sombra rolled her eyes. Why did no one believe her?

 

_Sombra: For the last time, YES_

_Sombra: There’s only so many small girls who shout “GG” all the fucking time and are pro level gamers_

_Reaper: Ok, ok, point taken_

_Reaper: I just didn’t expect Overwatch to be there_

_Sombra: Who were you expecting exactly?_

_Reaper: I’m surprised you haven’t either asked Moira or snooped your way to the answer to that yet_

 

Sombra had asked Moira specifically who she was expecting trouble from, if not Overwatch, but she had declined to answer so far, instead pretending to get distracted with whatever was handy. Or tentacle-y, seeing as Moira was still dressed as some bizarre yellow octopus teacher demon.  

 

Sombra glanced over at Moira, who was doing pictures with another small crowd of people rotating in and out.

 

_Sombra: Listen, I’m busy talking to you, watching Moira be a weeb, and trying to scan for common Overwatch comm frequencies while on a shitty Wi-Fi all at the same time_

_Sombra: cut me some goddamn slack here_

_Reaper: And I’m talking to you, trying to arrange a pickup for you two in case shit goes south, keep Amélie entertained AND do my actual fucking job all while being a cloud of black smoke in a tiny ass vent_

_Reaper: so shut the fuck up_

 

Sombra scowled at her phone. Whatever, you edgy Hot Topic bed sheet, she thought viciously.

She checked the progress of a program she had running in the background. She had made it to automatically scan for common comm frequencies so she could listen in, but had modified it to look for the ones Overwatch was known to use. So far nothing was coming up. Maybe they had changed their tactics? She expanded the parameters of the program to scan for more frequencies. She could check on the chatter of the convention security staff and hopefully pick up some clues there, but was hoping that she could just cut out the middleman and find the correct frequency herself.

 

Sombra flicked back to texting after her phone pinged again.

 

_Reaper: Ok, so if you guys need it, I’ve arranged a pick up for you guys_

_Reaper: You won’t need to worry about anything other than getting to the point of contact and getting in the correct taxi_

_Reaper: I’ll text you the exact details about the taxi once I have them_

_Reaper: I’ve also arranged so that your stuff from the hotel is being collected and sent to the safe house_

_Reaper: Also, tell Moira good job on befriending the hotel staff_

_Reaper: All I had to say was that she was being stalked and they practically fell over themselves trying to make sure she was gonna be ok_

_Reaper: they assured me that they wouldn’t tell anyone that she was there without a warrant_

_Reaper: now that THAT’S done_

_Reaper: how are you and Moira holding up?_

 

Sombra looked up at Moira, who pretending to be slain by a six-year old little girl in a super hero costume. That was pretty freaking adorable, hopefully she could find that picture floating around online somewhere after the convention was over. However, Moira had been much more subdued ever since Sombra told her about D.Va being here. She wasn’t as chatty, for one, and wasn’t interacting with the people asking for pictures as much, either.

 

_Sombra: She’s ok I think_

_Sombra: but not as happy as yesterday?_

_Sombra: which I guess is understandable_

_Sombra: I’m fine, btw_

_Sombra: a little worried about how we’re going to leave quickly if we need to_

_Sombra: I don’t think she can run in her current costume_

_Reaper: You’ll figure out something_

_Reaper: but hopefully it won’t come to that_

 

Sombra suddenly stilled as she heard Moira softly gasp. Snapping her head up, she noticed the green power ranger guy Moira had accidentally smacked with a tentacle earlier was standing in front of Moira.

 

“Hello, may I take a picture with you?” the guy asked with a slight bow. He sounded familiar… and with how Moira was tensed… Oh fuck, was he an Overwatch agent too? Which one was he?

 

Moira stepped back and said loudly, “Oh, um, alright then. What…what do you want to do? How do you want me to pose?”

 

Sombra felt her blood run cold as the Power Ranger dude gestured to the sword sheaths on his back, a long one that peeked over his shoulder and smaller one at the small of his back. Fuck, it was Genji, he was the only one with swords like that. Thankfully, she could see the red zip ties indicating they were fake, like all the other costume weapons here. “I thought that maybe I could pretend to slay you with these? You are a monster after all, and I am a Sentai. Sworn to protect the world from evils.”

 

Sombra could see Moira flinch at the word “monster”, and racked her brain for a good excuse to pull Moira away. Before she could come up with something, Moira said in an obviously-trying-too-hard-to-be-happy-and-polite voice, “Ah yes, that’ll be… that’ll be grand. Um…”

 

Moira seemed to give up talking and went to get into what Sombra recognized as her anime combat pose for pictures. Body mass lowered, knees bent, arm tentacles reaching out threateningly. She had also changed the color of the head and tentacles from yellow to red. She didn’t use the color change tech a lot, was she trying to send a message? Or did she think it would be better for pictures?

 

Genji unsheathed the large sword and took up a battle ready pose with his sword out, but otherwise didn’t move. Ok, thought Sombra, remember, they were fake swords, they just look real and he wouldn’t do anything too stupid in front of such a large crowd.

 

The crowd around them snapped photos for a few seconds, but then one girl yelled out, “Pretend to stab Koro-Sensei with your sword, Mr. Sentai! Oh, and like, try to block the sword with a tentacle Koro-Sensei!”

 

Sombra glared daggers at the girl, but tried to keep calm. They’re just fake swords, it’ll be fine, she reasoned.

 

Genji and Moira slowly moved to pose like the pushy girl in the crowd had requested. Genji positioned his sword as if he was going to stab Moira in the stomach and Moira carefully wrapped one tentacle around it as if trying to stop it.

 

Sombra could hear Genji muttering something that made Moira flinch again, but she couldn’t catch it well enough to tell what it was. She frowned and made a mental note to ask Moira later.

 

They held this pose for a few seconds before they both relaxed, Moira standing back to her full height and unwrapping the tentacle around the sword, and Genji pulling the sword back to re-sheath it before standing fully upright.

 

“Can you do one where Mr. Sentai is standing over you as you lay on the ground?” asked a guy in the crowd.

 

Moira froze and Sombra decided to step in. “No, she can’t lay down in this. She might damage the head and it’s hard for her to get down onto the floor and back up again.”

 

“Ah ok, sorry. Well, how about a silly pose instead?”

 

“Like what?” piped up Genji, who seemed to be very interested.

 

“If you can’t slay the monster,” crowed another person in the back, “LAY the monster!”

 

The crowd burst into giggles and laughter. Moira and Genji both froze and looked at each other (well, as best as they could with their respective head gear on), but then shrugged.

Genji scooped up a tentacle and pressed it to his helmet’s mouth area, like he was kissing a lady’s hand. Moira made the costume color change from red to pink and acted bashful, turning her head away slightly and bringing up her other tentacle to her face shyly. 

 

The crowd laughed and cheered. Sombra took a quick picture on her phone. Assuming that they got out of this alive, she was gonna get this printed as a poster and tape it to a wall in Moira’s lab. And maybe send a copy to the Overwatch noobs when Genji got too annoying.

 

Moira and Genji staying the in the tentacle kissing pose for a few seconds before Moira tried to pull her tentacle back. Genji, however, had other plans. He yanked her closer, slid an arm around her waist, and pulled her into an awkward half dip (the inherent height differences were never more obvious), keeping one tentacle gently uplifted in his extended arm to the uproar of faux-scandalized “oooooh”s and wolf whistles from the crowd. “Get it, Mr. Sentai!” yelled one omnic.

 

Moira flailed her free arm tentacle in surprise, and had to shift her weight on her feet to keep from tipping them both over, but quickly adapted and held it up to her forehead like she was swooning.

 

Sombra giggled maniacally as she took picture after picture trying to get a good angle. This was pure gold!  She was going to post this fucking EVERYWHERE online.

 

Eventually, Genji helped Moira stand upright again and stepped back. Moira smoothed down and straightened her costume as best as she could. Genji gave a bow and said “Thank you for the pictures. Your costume is great. I hope to cross paths with you again very soon.”

 

Moira awkwardly replied, “Ah yes, thank you. Your cosplay is good too.”

 

As Genji turned and walked away, Moira’s voice came through Sombra’s comm, “Make an excuse for us, I need to collect myself after that.”

 

“Ok, yeah, that was really fucking weird. I’ll let Reaps know that we need to bounce ASAP, too.” Sombra stepped closer to Moira so people would think they were just talking normally, and pulled out her phone and brought up the text message with Reaper.

 

“No, don’t tell Reaper. I don’t want to leave yet. I just need to collect my thoughts in a safe place and we can keep going.”

 

“No, we should just go. Now. I’ll text Reaps and let him know Genji is here and we need to GTFO.” Sombra

 

“No, Sombra. We don’t know for sure what they’re up to, if anything at all.”

 

“There’s two confirmed enemy agents here!”

 

“We are _staying_ , or I am telling Max and Akande about yesterday morning.”

 

That. Bitch. Well fine then, she’d follow her orders and if Moira got captured Sombra wasn’t coming to rescue her skinny ass.

 

Sombra stepped out in front of Moira facing the audience and held out her hands, “Ok, guys, she needs to take a break so I’m gonna have to ask you to try to find us later if you want more pictures.”

 

The audience groaned in disappointment, but started dispersing. Sombra watched them go, making shooing motions are the ones that were taking a while. Once it was down to only one person left, who was busy trying to stuff their phone into an already overstuffed bag, Sombra turned back around to look at Moira.

 

“Come on, chica,” ordered Sombra, not-so-gently leading Moira away, “He can’t follow us into the women’s bathroom.”


	8. The Second Day - Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I like coming here, because I get to be someone else for a bit. I don’t want to give that up just yet,” Moira quietly stated.
> 
>  
> 
> Sombra turned and shifted so she could at least half face Moira, sitting on the counter. “Why? I always got the impression that you liked the way you are. You’re very confident and have almost everything you seem to want out of life. Two good jobs, two dogs, a bunny, a lab, all the science you can do without too much oversight. Why be someone else?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't very funny. Sorry. But sometimes you gotta deal with non-funny things. 
> 
> Moira's reasons for liking cosplay are discussed here, a little bit. I don't think she wants to be someone else all the time, but it's nice sometimes to play pretend and take a small vacation from the self that you normally project for the world to see on an everyday basis.
> 
> Tumblr: https://maximumcatfeels.tumblr.com

Moira knew she had fucked up. Hell, she knew she was currently fucking up. She shouldn’t have threatened to tell Max and Akande about Sombra’s mistake yesterday morning and she really should be running away from this convention like the hounds of hell are after her with Sombra safely tucked under an arm.

 

Especially after she noticed a small cut on the tentacle that she had wrapped around Genji’s sword. She hadn’t told Sombra about it yet, and she wasn’t sure that she would. Sombra would just freak out.

 

She would, however, apologize to Sombra. That she could do. But just the thought of running away from the convention because of Overwatch just made her furious. Overwatch had taken her career (twice), her reputation, parts of her sanity, and fucked over so many people that she knew. Blackwatch-turned-Talon members who would have been imprisoned because Overwatch wouldn’t protect them when the inquiries started to pour in, even though Blackwatch did the dirty work for Overwatch. Other Oasis personnel who had been sacked (less publically than her) for daring to dream outside their limitations just like she had. That wasn’t even counting Reyes and all of the blame he got for Overwatch’s fall, as if he had been the sole cause of it. Now she was going to have to give up her holidays doing something she loved because of Overwatch being bellends _again_? Fuck that and fuck Overwatch. There were so many good reasons why it had been disbanded, and while Talon had helped in that regard, they hadn’t been behind every single bad thing Overwatch had done. There had been plenty of corruption and potential scandals without Talon even thinking of getting their claws dirty.

 

And maybe Overwatch wasn't here for her! As much as Moira knew she was a narcissist (a bit of one, anyway), that didn’t mean that the entire world revolved completely around her (just, you know, the important bits did). They could be here for their own enjoyment! D.Va was Korean, and as much as anime convention centered mostly around Japanese culture, there were some Korean things there as well like K-dramas and K-pop which were mixed in. Plus, the gaming portions she would like. And hell, Genji was Japanese! Maybe he wanted to see what one of these conventions looked like?

 

Except… in Blackwatch, Genji had rejected (sometimes violently) any attempts Moira made to bond with him over anime or anything Japan related. She knew part of it was, well, her and her general creepiness, but he had at one point told her that he’d rather cut off his remaining human parts himself with a rusty spoon than ever go to an anime convention, because they would invariably get it wrong. He also added that he’d never go to one if there was any chance that she would be there.  She had never thought that she would be best buddies with Genji (especially with how much he seemed to adore Ziegler), but after that, she downgraded her hopes to mutual ignoring and live and let live attitudes, with only minimal amounts of snark thrown his direction when he really deserved it. That, thankfully, had had been the right level of comradery to strive for.

 

If Genji was here, in costume, he probably wasn’t here for his own enjoyment. He was here for a mission. Moira just hoped that the mission wasn’t her own assassination, but… it probably was.

 

Moira was shaken out of her reverie by Sombra’s hand on her shoulder.  “So now what are we doing? We can’t camp out here forever.” Sombra waved a hand at the bathroom in general.

Moira sighed and shut her eyes. She had taken off the head and disconnected the tentacles so she could splash water on her face and use the restroom with fear of getting them dirty (plus the head would have been a tight fit in the normal stalls and she didn’t want to use the handicapped ones). She had hopped up to sit on a bit of the counter with the mirrors and sinks to gather her thoughts and Sombra had decided to sit next to her.

 

She kept her eyes closed as she murmured, “I’m sorry, Sombra. I shouldn’t have done that.”

 

She could hear Sombra shifting but nothing more was said until Moira continued, “I’m not sure how much is wise to tell you here, while in a public restroom, but I’ll try to explain my thinking at least, if not some of the… history that is influencing my thought processes.”

 

“But you’ll tell me later about it, right? About Genji?”

 

Moira cracked an eye to look at Sombra’s face. She didn’t have her normal gleeful look when she was being promised potentially juicy information to add to her ever-growing collection, so Moira decided to take the gamble that Sombra was actually interested. “Yes, although I will admit, I’m surprised you don’t know all about it.”

 

Sombra shrugged a shoulder. “What is it with you people assuming I know everything? What I’ve got are mostly text based reports and clips of footage and recordings. Those can show what happened but not the factors into why it happened. _Those_ are much harder to come by and much more interesting. I have to piece it together myself, but it’s never completely correct. And I like verifying information from a reliable source. Can’t have my reputation sullied by dealing in bad information.”

 

Moira chuckled, “I guess that’s true.”

 

They lapsed into silence for a bit.

 

“I like coming here, because I get to be someone else for a bit. I don’t want to give that up just yet,” Moira quietly stated.

 

Sombra turned and shifted so she could at least half face Moira, sitting on the counter. “Why? I always got the impression that you liked the way you are. You’re very confident and have almost everything you seem to want out of life. Two good jobs, two dogs, a bunny, a lab, all the science you can do without too much oversight. Why be someone else?”

 

“Well, lots of reasons, really. One, it’s fun! With a costume and some makeup, I can be almost anything I want to be. I can be a hero or a villain or like this character, something in between. And all these people here? They like to play along. Even if they aren’t dressed up, they participate in the fantasy and… that’s just amazing. All the creativity here is astounding.”

 

Sombra nodded, “Yeah, I can see that. You’re not even the craziest costume I’ve seen today. I took a picture for posterity, it was so fucking amazing.”

 

Moira smiled. “Ha! You’ll have to show me later, maybe I’ll commission Reaper to do it but better. At any rate, I know that I’m not really friends with the people here, but… it’s like a connection? A common thing between us? We can talk about a shared topic and it’s not a chore. I don’t feel like it’s difficult to talk to them about my costume or the character or the series it’s from. And that’s… refreshing.”

 

Sombra nodded again. “I can see that.”

 

“And,” Moira continued, “I know it’s escapism… Sometimes I feel like I can’t handle with all the things that people expect of me, even if they aren’t consciously doing it.”

 

“Like what?” Sombra asked.

 

“Well, everyone _knows_ about the disgraced Dr. O’Deorian. She’s a witch, and a quack. She’s weird and weird-looking and awful and rude and a failure. But not really a failure, because all of her discoveries _work_ , they just don’t want to advertise that. She’s got a terrible bedside manner and only cares about herself. She is everything a good person and a good scientist is not. But here?” Moira looked down at her hands in her lap. “She’s just some random harmless, faceless person who likes to cosplay. Maybe she’s not the best at it, but she has fun. She can talk to the artists and compliment their work freely. She can take silly pictures with little girls who want to slay the monster and even sillier pictures with someone who wants to LAY the monster. I get to be…someone else. For a little while anyway.”

 

 Moira snuck a glance at Sombra, who was dead silent and staring back with an intense expression.

 

Moira looked away and decided to keep going, “And I fear, that now that I have been found, that I won’t be able to go to these anymore without making a huge fuss. Security details and body guards and all that. And the real pain is that it’s the same fucking organization that has already denied me so much.”

 

“And running now means letting them take that from you too.”

 

“Well... Yes.”

 

Sombra’s face pinched into an angry frown and she looked at her phone. “Well, I still think we should book it. There’s no way that both Genji and D.Va are here and not up to something. Plus, we don’t know if there are any more of the Overwatch idiots hanging around.”

 

Moira sighed. Bollocks.

 

“However, you’re in luck, chica,” continued Sombra, “Reaps says that we got about an hour and a half to kill before our ride gets here. So we got about that long to have ‘fun’ before we GTFO. In the interest of having a quick getaway let’s just keep doing pictures in the hallway but work our way towards the back exit. It’s a little quieter that way.”

 

“Grand.” Moira got off the counter and started reconnecting her tentacles. “Oh and Sombra?”

 

“Sí?”

 

“You’ve got toilet paper stuck to your shoe.”

 

“Fuck you, I thought you were going to say thank you or something sweet!”

 

“I have to keep you on your toes, somehow, Sombra.”

  

* * *

 

 

Genji was following them.

 

Sombra had been keeping an eye out for him, suspecting that he would, and he did not disappoint. While he didn’t walk up asking for pictures again, he was always about 30 meters away. Often, he was stopped by people for pictures of his own. Apparently his costume was _really_ good? If it weren’t for the fact that she knew he was tailing them, Sombra would have thought that he had come here on his own to enjoy the convention. He was hamming it up for the cameras, and shouting out what seemed to be that character’s catch phrases at appropriate times.

 

They were about halfway through the path to the back exit that would allow them to slip out quietly once the taxi was here, but Sombra knew that they couldn’t really leave until Genji was out of the way. It had been slow progress to make it this far, being stopped every half meter or so for more pictures. It wasn’t going to be easy getting rid of him.

 

Moira had stopped talking almost completely after they come out of the restroom. Sombra suspected it was due to a lot of factors, least of all the impromptu one-sided feels session they held in there. Moira struck her as an intensely private person. Having all this stuff dragged out was probably hell for her. Plus, having to face giving up a cherished hobby because of the same asshats that have fucked you over repeatedly was most likely going to mess with her head for a while. Dammit, they had been having fun before all of this shit. Now everything was sliding backwards towards an unhappy, snappy, bitchy Moira. Max would not be pleased. But would he punish them for failing a team bonding exercise if it was crashed by enemy agents? Sombra wasn’t sure, but she suspected that she would get the brunt of the blame at least.

 

The switchblade sitting in her light jacket’s pocket felt heavier than Sombra remembered. Violence wasn’t the answer here, as much as she’d like it to be. There were too many potential witnesses and collateral damage. Plus, even with those fake swords, Genji was still a trained assassin. If he really wanted to, he could kill them both with just his hands and that was before one factored in unnatural cyborg strength and agility. A paltry switchblade would slow him down, at best, and that was assuming that she could even pierce his armor in any meaningful way.

 

Sombra was mentally kicking herself for not bringing some translocators or at least her hacking gloves. Then she could have made a better getaway plan. But right now, she couldn’t even get herself out of this mess much less her giraffe of a coworker. She wasn’t sure about the limits of Moira’s fade or shadowstep or whatever the hell she called it ability. Could she use it without the backpack filled with crazy colored chemicals she wore on missions? If so, could she use it and still keep her costume on to help hide her identity?

 

Sombra gave a frustrated huff. Things would be so much better if that stupid cyborg wasn’t here. But how to get rid of him?

 

Watching Moira crouch down to play gently with a little girl who wasn’t sure whether to be afraid of the tall yellow thing or be curious about it, Sombra racked her brain thinking to think of a solution. If only they could call security or something. He _was_ stalking them, technically…

 

Hmmmm, maybe if she confronted him and told him to back off or she’d call security, he’d leave long enough for them to slip out. Especially with witnesses around, he couldn’t make a scene.

 

Well, it wasn’t a great plan, but it was easily accomplished. It wouldn’t take that long either, and it was low-risk, high reward overall. Sure, the other plans they had would probably be safer (stick together, call for backup, etc.), but it wouldn’t hurt to do this one on top of the others, right?

 

 “I’m gonna go talk to Genji,” said Sombra, making a snap decision, “You stay here and keep doing weeb things. I’ll be right back.”

 

Sombra started walking towards Genji, with her hands in her pockets, carefully picking through the crowd.

 

“What?! Sombra, no! Don’t leave me!” came Moira’s panicked whisper in Sombra’s comm.

 

Sombra ignored her and kept walking, Moira’s voice still going in her ear. “ _Sombra_! Sombra, come back here! What are you _doing_ , stick to the plan! Sombra, don’t leave me here _alone_!”

 

Not wanting Moira freaking out in her ear as she confronted Genji, Sombra silenced the comm. She was too close now, no time for distractions.

 

Genji was in the middle of a picture with two giggling teenaged girls, but Sombra could wait. She stood off to the side, waiting until they left, waving their goodbye to Genji.

 

“Oy, Pendejo,” Sombra called out, “A word?”

 

Genji visibly stiffened, but said “Yes, we can speak.”

 

He turned to the rest of the crowd and gave a slight bow, “Forgive me, I must speak with my friend, I will be free afterwards.”

 

The people in his small crowd didn’t look terribly convinced, but shuffled a few steps away anyway, clearly eyeing Sombra as she stepped towards Genji.

 

“You need to stop whatever it is you think you’re doing and get lost. You’re making me and my friend suuuuuuper uncomfortable, and that’s not fucking cool. You’ve been practically stalking us for like 30 minutes and before that you even came and freaked her out by grabbing her unexpectedly for that dip for the pictures.”

 

Genji straightened his shoulders and drew himself to his full height, “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not stalking you or anyone else.”

 

“You’ve been following us! We move a few meters; you move a few meters! I’ve been watching you, cábron!”

 

“Am I not allowed to be in the same public space as you? I’m not following you, I’m just heading the same direction! I’m just… also getting stopped for pictures a lot… at the same time you are.” Genji replied nonchalantly.

 

“That’s not true!” interjected one guy with a nice camera around his neck making both Genji and Sombra jump. “I noticed you following them too! You don’t get too close to them, but you also will turn down pictures if you get too far away!”

 

“Hey, this is a private conversation!” objected Genji.

 

“Maybe so, but I won’t stand by and let you harass people and try to get away with it. I had a friend that was being stalked by a creep who didn’t understand that cosplay is not consent. I see the same signs here.”

 

“Thank you, Mr. Random Dude,” said Sombra, “He’s been stalking my friend, and I just want him to back off! He’s really freaking us out!” This was working out way better than she thought! She may not need to even threaten to call security, someone else may do it for her!

 

As if on cue, the guy with the nice camera turned to Sombra, “If he keeps bothering you, we can call Security.”

 

“I’m not bothering them!” cried Genji.

 

“You obviously are, or she wouldn’t have come over here to tell you to back off!” piped up a girl who had been apparently eavesdropping.

 

Sombra had to fight to keep a grin off her face. Yes… it was all coming together perfectly. Best thing was, it was all truth! Ok, so they were omitting that Genji was trying to capture them because they were Talon members, a terrorist group according to, like 96% of the world, but hey. Details. He was still the one stalking _them_.

 

Genji had his hands up, as if to show that he meant no harm, and kept insisting, “I was not following them! It’s just a coincidence! Please don’t call security!”

 

“It’s not a coincidence! You are stalking us! You are making my friend miserable! She just wanted to come and have a good time, but _noooooo_ …” retorted Sombra, crossing her arms.

 

Genji ducked his head and raised his hands higher, “I’m not stalking you! But…” he looked around at the people gathering around to see the commotion and then continued, “I will leave if I am making you uncomfortable.”

 

Perfect. Now to make sure he actually leaves and then go back to Moira. But first she had to sell it to the crowd…

 

“You _better_ leave! And if I see you again, I’m calling the cops!” Sombra growled, jabbing a finger into his chest. The crowd murmured in agreement behind her.

 

Genji’s shoulders sagged and he lowered his hands. “Alright, I will go now. Sorry for all the misunderstanding and trouble.”

 

Sombra crossed her arms again, and sneered as Genji turned to leave. Good. He was actually leaving, and she had people as witnesses. It was hard to stop herself from smirking, but she needed to play the part of truly angry friend of a stalking victim. Which, she kind of was at the moment. Good thing the best lies have elements to truth to them, it made this so much easier.

 

When Genji had finally made it about 40 meters away, Sombra let herself smile. She then turned around and walked calmly back to where she had left Moira.

 

She turned her comm back up and chirped, “Hey Morri? Guess what? I got rid of our little ninja problem.”

 

Silence from the comm.

 

Sombra looked around. Where _was_ Moira? She was an incredibly tall person dressed as a yellow headed demon teacher, she can’t be that hard to miss. And she couldn’t have gotten that far, taking care of Genji didn’t take that long.

 

“Morri? Where are you?” Sombra asked suddenly worried, “Moira?”

 

Still nothing.

 

Sombra whipped her head around, looking frantically. “This isn’t funny, Moira. Where the fuck _are_ you?” she said in a sing song voice with a note of panic underneath.

 

She spun around on her heel, desperately scanning the crowd. Come on, Moira was as tall as a fucking giraffe, why couldn’t she find her?!

 

As she looked, one girl in the crowd suddenly perked up and waved at her. Sombra had no clue who she was, and was apprehensive as this strange girl approached.

 

“Oh, good! I found one of you,” said the girl instead of a greeting, “Your tall friend, the one dressed as Koro-Sensei? She dropped this as she was leaving with your other friend.” She held out an ear comm in her hand.

 

“What other friend?” asked Sombra opening her hand to receive the comm.

 

“The short one in the big hoodie and kitty mask? I think her hair was blonde?”

 

Sombra just stared at her. “Which way did they go? I need to go catch up with them.”

 

The girl shrugged, “I don’t know, actually. By the time I looked up they were gone.”

 

Sombra plastered a fake smile on her face, but inwardly she was seething. How could she have been so stupid? She didn’t want to yell at this random girl, but she also wanted to shake her by the shoulders and scream “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE THEY WENT?!” to work out her anger at the situation.

 

Instead she ground out, “Thank you for giving it back to me anyway, I’ll find them on my own,” before heading to the nearest wall and leaning against it.

 

Without the comm, she had no way of tracking Moira. Maybe she had a Talon tracker in her, but Sombra doubted it. She was an inner council member and was prone to self-experimentation, a little self-surgery to get it out and then a small temper tantrum at a council meeting to keep it out would be child’s play and also such a Moira thing to do. Plus, she didn’t want to ask Reaper if Moira had a tracker. That just spelled death with a capital everything (because it was edgier when spelled that way).

 

Ok, Sombra, focus, she thought. You lost your tall weeb weirdo of a coworker/friend. All the big wigs at Talon will kill you if you don’t find her ASAP. You don’t have a comm or a tracker signal. You could hack into the convention cameras, but seconds are ticking by and you don’t have your hacking glove nor do you know where the nearest computer terminal with lax security is. Moira was most likely taken by an Overwatch member.  For now, Moira was probably fine, but you can’t count on her to get out of this while stuck in that heavy costume. You still don’t have a lock on the frequency they are using for their comms, but… But you do know where an Overwatch member is roughly speaking...

 

Sombra took off at a sprint in the direction that Genji had headed off in, weaving as best as she could through the crowd. This was a stupid plan, but it was the best one she had at the moment.

 

Thankfully, he had still been walking in the same direction Sombra last saw him going, and he wasn’t walking quickly. Unfortunately, by the time that she had seen him in the crowd, she was still sprinting and didn’t have enough distance to stop or swerve to avoid running into him.

 

Later, when Sombra would debrief, she would swear that time slowed down. She tried to slow down but didn’t want to stumble and fall so she was still going pretty fast.  Genji had noticed the sound of her running and started to turn around to see what was coming. She turned her body to try to slam into him sideways, but her backpack threw her slightly off balance, turning her around more than she meant. Genji, with his superhuman speed, drew the short sword at the small of his back and sliced the air. He hit the backpack and its contents of various snack foods and drinks went flying everywhere in an explosion of granola bits and water. Then, due to momentum, Sombra finally did body slam into Genji, knocking them both to the ground as Genji’s sword fell to the floor with a clatter.

 

For a second she laid on top of the cyborg, winded and stunned. Genji groaned underneath her, muttering something in Japanese. Once she rolled off of him, she sat up, and looked at the sword and her poor backpack cleaved nearly in two. Eyes wide, she screamed at him, pointing at her backpack, “YOU HAVE A REAL SWORD?! WHAT THE HELL?! YOU COULD HAVE SLICED ME IN HALF!”

 

Then, people started screaming around them. Shit had officially hit the fan.  


	9. The Second Day - Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When she felt someone rush up and grab her middle crying out, “Oh thank goodness! I found you!” Moira went rigid and her heartbeat kicked up another notch. That was NOT Sombra, she knew better than to hug her unexpectedly (Moira had been known to “accidentally” swipe people with her nails when trying to break free of an unexpected embrace). That and Moira could feel the outline of a bulky laser pistol pressing against her upper thighs. Unless Sombra had shrunk several centimeters and gotten both a grudge and a gun in record time, this was not Sombra. She looked down and saw a small girl in a giant hoodie with the hood pulled up over blonde hair and her lower face covered with a kitty mask looking back at her. Who was this girl and what did she want?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still super nervous about this chapter and the next one. I'm trying to view it as i'm still learning writing and I can work on it again later but I'm still anxious about it. :S
> 
> Also, still hoping to find a second Beta (my first one is lovely but busy AF)  
> tumblr: https://maximumcatfeels.tumblr.com

Moira was going to kill Sombra, assuming that she lived through this first. Well, ok, that was a lie, she knew she would live through this, it was just a matter of how much dignity she was going to have at the end of it. 

 

Still, being abandoned by your “friend”/coworker when you rely on them to see was a bit of a kick to the teeth. Especially when Moira started to panic. People had been asking for more pictures, and her brain was beginning to have a meltdown at being left alone. Sombra may not have been the greatest choice to escort her in the convention, but Moira had felt pretty safe up until she left. But when Sombra walked off, the reality of being alone, unable to defend yourself, with (armed) enemy agents somewhere nearby and being unable to see them coming hit her. Hard. Moira starting feeling the symptoms of panic. Her heart began racing, she felt the prickle of a cold sweat under her clothes, she was starting to get overloaded from all the noises and people trying to talk to her. She had unconsciously backed up towards the wall until she bumped up against it, desperately trying to get a hold on herself and not blow up in a temper at the crowd around her.

 

When she felt someone rush up and grab her middle crying out, “Oh thank goodness! I found you!” Moira went rigid and her heartbeat kicked up another notch. That was NOT Sombra, she knew better than to hug her unexpectedly (Moira had been known to “accidentally” swipe people with her nails when trying to break free of an unexpected embrace). That and Moira could feel the outline of a bulky laser pistol pressing against her upper thighs.  Unless Sombra had shrunk several centimeters and gotten both a grudge and a gun in record time, this was not Sombra. She looked down and saw a small girl in a giant hoodie with the hood pulled up over blonde hair and her lower face covered with a kitty mask looking back at her. Who was this girl and what did she want?

 

Luckily, the girl spoke and made the who and the what crystal clear.

 

“Take out your comm, drop it on the ground, and come with me quietly,” said D.Va quietly in the small space between them.

 

Moira was of the firm belief to not argue with idiots who had guns and were not afraid to use them (which described most of her coworkers, past and present, at times…), so she complied. She could have faded away, but that would have probably started a panic and well, she wanted to save that trick up her sleeve for a good opening. Moira snaked a tentacle into the opening of the giant head she was wearing and dutifully took the comm out of her ear. She pulled the tentacle out, and lowered it to the ground before dropping the comm.

 

She heard D.Va’s chipper voice cut through the noise as the girl let go and stepped back to tun and face the crowd, “Hey guys! I’m sorry but we need to go now. Thank you for your support and we hope to see you tomorrow!”

 

Then D.Va tugged her along by a tentacle non-too-gently towards… somewhere. The walk had been silent and tense, but after about ten minutes, D.Va stopped and stepped back to face Moira. Moira wasn’t sure where they were exactly, she couldn’t see well, but she suspected that this was a service area meant for the event staff. She also suspected that D.Va still had that gun in her hoodie and was more than willing to whip it out and shoot her.

 

Time for sass.

 

“Well, this is a… lovely place you’ve taken me?” Moira tried.

 

D.Va was silent.

 

“As much as I… _appreciate_ the scenery you’re trying to show me, I can’t actually really see it in this giant head, so I would like to leave now,” Moira decided to keep going with the sass. If she could figure out a way to get D.Va pissed off, she could start looking for good openings. Angry people made sloppy mistakes. Sloppy mistakes meant windows to freedom.

 

“Be quiet! I’m trying to listen,” snapped D.Va.

 

She must be listening to her comms, thought Moira. Time to keep pressing. “Well, I’ll leave you to that then. Goodbye, lovely seeing you. Thank you, but no thank you, for the tour.”

 

“Stay right there,” growled D.Va. Moira just barely heard the soft click of the gun.

 

Moira stayed put, but took the time to look the small girl over. D.Va wasn’t truly angry yet, by her estimations, but the gamer was well on her way. Her body language was tense, stiff lines of her back and limbs present. The pink hoodie she was wearing hid her body quite well (honestly, it was like a tent on the poor waif of a child), but Moira prided herself on learning how to tell body language even with baggy clothes. D.Va’s lower face was covered with a kitty mouth print mask. Her eyes and brows were just visible between the hood of the hoodie on her head and the kitty mouth mask below. Her brows were knit together and her eyes were trained on Moira. Her laser pistol was out of the hoodie and pointed at Moira’s chest.

 

What an interesting child, thought Moira. She wondered if D.Va’s reflexes were purely from rote muscle memory of gaming and military training or if there were some genetics involved. She would ask for a blood sample. Well, not right now, she didn’t have any equipment to take it, but later. 

 

Right as Moira opened her mouth to ask if she could have a blood sample later (maybe D.Va could donate it at Gibraltar and Ziegler could get it to her), D.Va sighed and muttered a long string of Korean.

 

“Do you ever feel like you’re the only one carrying your team?” the gamer asked, lowering the gun a fraction.

 

“Um,” said Moira eloquently, “Sometimes? Why do you ask?”

 

“Both of our partners are idiots. They got caught with live bladed weapons and are being questioned by the local police right now.”

 

Moira sighed and face palmed (face tentacled?). She was going to kill Sombra personally and tell the other Talon members to fuck off. How did Sombra even get caught with that tiny switchblade? Moira was pretty sure that the nails on her right hand (the “fucking eagle claw hand” according to Reaper) were longer than Sombra’s switchblade when folded.

 

"So, since Genji isn’t here to do this… Why are you here?” demanded D.Va, “What do you hope to accomplish at this convention?”

 

“I’m here on holiday,” replied Moira coolly, “I was hoping to achieve some rest and relaxation, like one usually does while on a holiday.”

 

“Yeah right,” snorted D.Va, “We got wind of a plot by a local radical group hoping to buddy up to Talon by kidnapping an Oasis employee and you just _happen_ to be here?”

 

Moira paused. So they thought she was here on Talon business to do something involving a kidnapping by a third party? Wait, did Oasis contact Overwatch? Why? Maybe she could get D.Va to enlighten her.

 

“Well, since you know everything about the situation,” said Moira fighting to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, “And I am here at your tender mercy, I am curious to know how you figured it all out.”

 

“Do think I’m stupid? I’m not going to tell you that!”

 

“No, no! I _genuinely_ am curious how you were so brilliant as to figure out this cunning plan.” That wasn’t much of a lie, Moira really did want to know how Overwatch “found” her out.

 

“Tch. It wasn’t a cunning plan, you noob! You left clues all over the place. Oasis contacted us a few days ago, saying that they had noticed that one of their high profile employees’ cosplay page was showing signs of being stalked. They gave us the IP addresses and we found out the stalkers are some local radical anarchist group trying to buddy up to Talon by proving that they can be big players too. That they want to change the world by any means necessary like Talon and they wanted to start by kidnapping the Oasis employee to do some dirty work. Plus, you sent that email to Angela saying that you’re going to a convention and she knew that really meant an anime convention because medical conventions don’t want you there. Oasis said the employee would be here at this convention. Then, we come here and find you and Sombra. You both work for Talon, so it’s obvious that you’re here to oversee the plan and make sure they don’t fuck up. How exactly is that a ‘cunning plan’?”

 

Moira fought to not face palm or groan in frustration loudly. She knew the radical group they were talking about. They had been trying to buddy up to Talon yes, but even Talon had been less than keen to work with them due to their _massive amounts of stupidity_. They didn’t seem to understand that Akande’s vision for the future did include chaos but that he wanted the chaos to serve a purpose of bettering humanity and that eventually there would be rebuilding afterwards. They just wanted things to burn because they could. Worst yet, the radical group had heard of her custom genetic editing work and gotten it into their tiny brains that she could help them sow chaos through genetic based bio-weapons. She did a lot of “bad” things, sure, but they always had a purpose at the end of the day. Killing off large portions of the population with a bio-weapon just because she fucking could wasn’t her vision. Besides it missed the entire point of her custom genetic work. It was custom to each person, not meant to be a blanket cure-all! Or kill-all as the case may be.

 

So, she had refused to help and they had taken it poorly. It had gotten so bad that she had told both Talon and Oasis security about it, just so they wouldn’t let any known member step foot in the city. In keeping an eye out for her safety, Oasis’ security team must have noticed the unusual traffic patterns on her cosplay page just like Talon security had. Why Oasis decided to go behind her back to try to protect her, she wasn’t sure, but when she got back she was going to scream at the right people until she found out.

 

She wasn’t even sure if the radical group knew she was a Talon council member or just didn’t care. Or maybe they believed that she wasn’t well liked enough within Talon for the other council members to care about her being kidnapped, which was a plausible idea, to be fair enough. Good thing Max and Akande actually cared. Somewhat.

 

Moira took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This was going to be tricky. Overwatch wasn’t exactly known to embrace information contrary to their world view very well. Moira’s ruined career was living proof of that. Still, she needed to try _something_ to get out of this mess. But first, she needed to check something. “What was the name of the Oasis employee?”

 

“Huh?”

 

Moira repeated herself, “What was the name of the Oasis employee?”

 

“That’s none of your business!”

 

“You don’t know it, do you?” Moira couldn’t help but chuckle, “I’m going to take a small leap of logic here and assume that you don’t know who they are or what they look like, otherwise you wouldn’t be here holding me at gunpoint, you’d be sticking to the target like glue. Oasis didn’t tell you for whatever reason, so you just decided to look out for suspicious activity and ended up finding Sombra and myself.”

 

“That’s… that’s not true!”

 

“I hate to point this out to you,” Moira lied, she didn’t hate to point it out at all, “but I am an Oasis employee. I am the Minister of Genetics. I have a cosplay page and it is currently being monitored by Oasis’ security for my safety.” And Talon’s security team too, she mentally added.

 

“But!” cried D.Va with a note of dawning horror in her voice, “But it _can’t_ be you!”

 

Moira smirked, and purred out, “There’s a simple way to see if I’m lying. Call the Oasis’ security contact and ask. Say you can’t work with so little information, there are too many people here to be able to watch them all.”

 

D.Va gave an irritated high pitched growl but muttered something into her comm. Moira’s smirk widened into a grin: she was asking whoever was at Overwatch base to verify her story.

 

A few tense minutes passed by. D.Va’s gun was still pointed at her chest, but Moira knew that she had won this battle.

 

Sure enough, D.Va let out a groan. “Dammit! You were right!”

 

Moira chuckled again, of course she was right, “Why did you even take the job if you didn’t know who you were protecting? And are you really only here with Genji?!”

 

D.Va sighed, “We couldn’t let some innocent person get kidnapped by crazy people! Oasis just told us that the employee in question valued their privacy and didn’t like other people knowing that they went to these sorts of things. They didn’t want to out the employee, they just wanted us to watch out for potential threats. Winston thought it would be an easy job and help us establish credibility. Also, no one else’s costumes were ready in time…”

 

Well, Moira was definitely going to have to have a word with Oasis’ security team about a number of things. Including letting her know that they knew she went to anime conventions in the first place. She had tried to keep that secret close and she intended to find out how they knew exactly.

 

“Well, the potential threat I have right now is a girl in a hoodie pointing a gun at me, so if you could stop that, I’m sure that will help your case with credibility.”

 

Moira couldn’t see well, but she imagined D.Va was pouting as silence reigned for a few beats.

 

“Oh, come on,” Moira sighed, “I’m not here to do anything nefarious like you thought I was, and Oasis will be very upset if they find out you pointed a gun at the person you were supposed to protect. Put away the gun and I promise I won’t say a negative word to them about my ‘heroes’.”

 

“You’re still Talon. They’d understand if they knew were what you were.”

 

“You’ll have to prove it first. And I know that if anyone really had evidence that stood up in any court, I wouldn’t still be working at Oasis. They’ve tried and failed numerous times. So stop trying to play in affairs you don’t have the whole story to and let’s just live and let live for now.”

 

D.Va sighed and lowered the gun a fraction. “I guess.”

 

Moira quietly waited for D.Va to either put away the gun or keep arguing.

 

D.Va spoke suddenly, “So you really are here on a vacation?”

 

“Yes,” Moira replied stiffly. Oh boy, now she was going to be judged for her hobbies by an Overwatch agent. Again. What joy.

 

But D.Va surprised her again by not being a judgmental dick.

 

“You know,” said D.Va conversationally, “your costume is _really_ good. Like, amazing good. How did you do it? Did you make it? Did you buy it?”

 

“Oh!” exclaimed Moira, completely forgetting about everything now that the danger was past and she had someone to talk cosplay with, “I commissioned everything! I’m not a very good seamstress or crafter, but I know people who can, so I asked them to make it for me. The tentacles and head are color changing and when properly hooked up I can pick up and manipulate objects just as easy as I can with my own hands.”

 

Moira started cycling through the colors and then held up her tentacles to demonstrate their abilities.

 

D.Va’s gun lowered even further, as her eyes light up in fascination. “Cooooooool! I wish I had picked a costume as awesome as that instead of my dress!”

 

“I’m sure your dress is brilliant, too. May I see a picture?”

 

D.Va swiped at her phone’s screen a few times before holding it up to the giant head Moira was wearing. “See? I wore a gothic Lolita dress! I think I looked really good, but it’s nothing like yours.”

 

“Now, now, don’t be like that. Lolita is a fashion statement and this,” Moira gestured to herself, “is a cosplay. Two different things! You can’t compare them, it’s not fair to either. It _is_ a lovely dress though. Oh! And I love the tights, they’re so unique. Where did you get them?”

 

“Oh I got them online!”

 

“What site? Can you send me a link? Just give it to Ziegler and she’ll get it to me.”

 

“Sure!” D.Va chirped. “Are you going to buy Lolita clothes?”

 

Moira hummed noncommittally, “I don’t know. I like the look of the gothic Lolita dresses, they’re so beautiful and dramatic, but I suspect they won’t look good on me. I don’t look good in most dresses…”

 

“Maybe you could do the male version? The ones that look like butlers almost? I’ve seen pictures of you in a shirt and tie and I think you could pull it off.”

 

“I was thinking about that, yes. I’m still a bit too tall for everything though, I’ll have to get it custom made…”

 

“O. M. G! You should totally do it! When you get it made, let me know! I wanna see it!”

 

“Alright, alright,” Moira laughed, “I’ll make sure to get you a picture when I do it. Oh, and may I ask a potentially personal question?”

 

“Uh… like what?”

 

“Who did your hair? It’s a beautiful dye job.”

 

“Oh thanks! I have a hairdresser I go to. She cried when I said I wanted it blonde because it’s going to damage my hair, but I needed it for the disguise. Why do you ask?”

 

“Have you seen Sombra’s hair at this con? I’m not sure if she did it herself or not but either way; poor girl needs help.”

 

“I wasn’t going to say anything but yeah...”

 

* * *

 

 

“I can’t believe you had not one but _two_ fucking swords on you,” grumbled Sombra, flicking her blonde hair out of her face. God, she could not wait to get it dyed back to normal colors.

 

“You had a switchblade,” retorted Genji, “And I normally have two swords. It would be weirder if I didn’t.”

 

Sombra sighed in response. There wasn’t much she could say to that.

 

They were sitting side by side on a curb on the opposite side of the street facing the convention. There were a few police officers very clearly watching them from the doors of the convention. Which made sense, they had just been thrown out and had very narrowly avoided more serious consequences. After Genji had sliced up Sombra’s backpack and they had collided and landed on the floor, shit had really hit the fan. People had screamed and panicked, prompting security to arrive. The security arrived guns drawn, as Sombra and Genji were trying to recover and gather all of their things. Genji immediately put his hands up while Sombra laughed at him. He was the one with the sword, she would get out of this scot free. But then her switchblade fell out of her pocket and flicked open because the latch was old and shit and she was told to put her hands up too.

 

The next hour was filled with being escorted outside and then questioned. Sombra managed to fire off some texts to Reaper, who thankfully somehow managed to get some strings pulled to get them both let off the hook, but not before they both had to answer what felt like a thousand questions. He warned that she was going to get a serious lecture and punishment later from Talon, but for now she was just happy to not have to be asked for the millionth time why she had a switchblade when it clearly states that no live blades were supposed to be brought to this convention hall. Apparently “for self-defense against sword wielding weebs” wasn’t good enough, or maybe it had been her general pissy attitude that prompted them to keep asking, hoping they would get a better answer. She had also been lectured like she was some child about running at a dead sprint through the halls.

 

Ok, yes, she understood that she had royally fucked up, but why was she getting grilled just as much as Genji was, who not only had two swords but had used them to slice her poor backpack. She was going to miss that backpack; she had owned it for years!

 

She wasn’t sure why Reaper had bothered to get Genji let go with only a warning too. The ninja was a part of Overwatch, why not let those idiots deal with him getting in trouble? Then again, that was probably part of why Genji had agreed to wait out here with her for D.Va to bring Moira to her. They wanted to feel like they were repaying a favor. She sighed and kicked a pebble.

 

“Still can’t believe you nearly sliced me in half, either,” she grumbled.

 

“You were coming at me very fast and I have trained since I could walk to protect myself. What do you want me to do?”

 

“Dash away?! Step two paces to your left?! I don’t know, something besides try to make me into sushi!”

 

“You are not a fish! Besides, I was panicking. Normally you try to shut down my systems every time I see you.”

 

“Tch. If I wanted to do that I wouldn’t have run right at you. I would have snuck up on you instead.”

 

“… Let’s just drop this for now. We are not getting anywhere.”

 

Silence reigned for a minute before Sombra couldn’t take it anymore.

 

“Where are they? You said they would be here soon,” Sombra whined.

 

“I’m only going off what D.Va and Winston are telling me. They are coming back through the main hall and will be through the front doors shortly.”

 

“They must be getting stopped for more pictures,” Sombra muttered.

 

“Well,” Genji said slowly, “It is a really good costume.”

 

“Sure, if you like tentacles,” Sombra replied.

 

“I wonder why she picked that character…” Genji mused softly.

 

Sombra hummed inquisitively.

 

“The anime that the character is from… It’s a hard anime to explain. The basic premise is that the teacher is a monster that will destroy the earth in a year but it making a game out of teaching the students of one class before that time. The students are encouraged to learn to become assassins to kill the monster and save the earth. But as the story unfolds, you learn that the teacher is honestly trying to help the students and is not actually a villain at all. It ends by the teacher willingly being killed by the students to prevent the earth from being destroyed. She- someone once told me that when you cosplay, the characters you choose often reflect a piece of you. Not always of course, but…”

 

Sombra shrugged. “I don’t think it’s anything terribly complicated like you’re trying to make it out to be. Apparently, all of her costumes make sure she was as covered up as possible so she could enjoy the con without issue.” As she said the last part, she threw a glare at Genji.

 

Genji sighed. Hopefully he felt guilty, Sombra thought. As he fucking should.

 

“You know; she really was having fun before you two idiots showed up. I was too,” Sombra twisted the proverbial knife.

 

“I know, I could tell by looking at her,” Genji said softly, his shoulders drooping.

 

“She’s worried that she’ll never get to go to one again.” Another twist.

 

Genji was silent and bowed his head.

 

“I hope this was fucking worth it,” Sombra continued, “The original idiots that were after her didn’t even show up, so you ruined it all for nothing.”

 

“You know it wasn’t worth it. It has been a disaster from start to finish. The best thing we can get out of this now is walking away from each other peacefully once D.Va and Moira get here.”

 

And as if on cue, Sombra spotted a tall yellow headed octopus demon teacher with a tiny girl in a giant hoodie walk out of the front of the convention hall.

 

“Welp, here they are,” Sombra drawled, “I’d love to say it was nice sitting here chatting with you, but I’m not going to.”

 

Genji perked up and snapped his head to look at her. He was still wearing his Sentai helmet, so Sombra couldn’t be sure if he was glaring at her, but she liked to think he was.

 

As Moira and D.Va crossed the street and came closer, Genji and Sombra stood up and dusted themselves off.

 

Time to reunite and go home.


	10. The End of Second Day + Third Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Genji stopped and faced Moira abruptly. He didn’t have his swords, thankfully, as they had been confiscated by the police, so Moira figured he wasn’t going to stab her at least. Maybe he’ll try to kill her in a different way, but she was mentally prepared to fade and run like hell at the first sign of trouble. Yes, she was a coward. No, she didn’t care. She still had science to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the risk of sounding like a broken record... I'm nervous about the first scene in this chapter.  
> Constructive criticism is always welcome.
> 
> Also, almost every movie done by Studio Ghibli is amazing both story wise and visually. Depending on the movie, there might be some moments that are lost in translation (I had a few of those moments watching Ponyo) but generally speaking, they are amazing and I highly recommend all of them. 
> 
> This is the official end of the story and there will be a short epilogue that I will post in about two days. With that posting I'll also have a massive author's note at the end talking about the next fic. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's given this fic a chance! I know it was a bit of a weird one (just like our favorite resident geneticist).
> 
> EDIT: still looking for a second Beta so I can work on stories faster T-T   
> Tumblr : maximumcatfeels.tumblr.com

Moira was not sure what to expect when she finally reunited with Sombra, but Genji rushing forward and asking to speak to her, in private, wasn’t a possibility she would have thought of.

 

Both Sombra and D.Va looked at him with a surprised look, but Moira simply shrugged her shoulders and said , “Lead the way.”

 

To be honest, today had been such a weird day that she was looking forward to seeing what Genji had to say. It would be the shite icing on a shite cake.

 

So Genji awkwardly led her away down the street far enough to be out of earshot of Sombra and D.Va who were unabashedly staring at them. Well, thought Moira, with both of our faces covered by masks, the little snoopers weren’t going to be able to lip read.

 

Genji stopped and faced Moira abruptly. He didn’t have his swords, thankfully, as they had been confiscated by the police, so Moira figured he wasn’t going to stab her at least. Maybe he’ll try to kill her in a different way, but she was mentally prepared to fade and run like hell at the first sign of trouble. Yes, she was a coward. No, she didn’t care. She still had science to do.

 

His shoulders sagged and he let out a long robotic-tinged sigh. “I wanted… to apologize.”

 

Moira blinked a few times. What?

 

At her lack of response, he kept going, “I… have done a lot of thinking about my behavior with my Master’s guidance. I have come to realize… that I was unkind to many people, including you, during my time at Overwatch and Blackwatch, and even before that. Seeing you here, happy… It surprised me. I couldn’t remember you ever being happy and joyfully playful the way you were today. You… tried your best to connect with me and I pushed you away cruelly. The truth is, thinking of home was painful, and the things you wanted to try to bond with me over were things I had shared with my brother when we were young. Instead of facing my pain and telling you or trying to find another way to connect, I mocked you for your interests and belittled you. I could tell that you gave up trying to bond with people in Blackwatch after a while, and I believe that I was a factor in that. I also did not appreciate you. You healed me and the others often at considerable risk to your own safety. You kept us alive so many times in so many dangerous situations and I cannot recall if any of us really ever thanked you properly. I kept comparing you to Angela and her accomplishments to annoy you even though you are your own person with your own successes. I wanted to spend more time with her and was angry that you were our medic instead. But now I realize, I was being selfish. Angela would have been miserable if she was in your position, whereas you were able to cope with the mental stress and strain of the job much easier.”

 

He straightened his shoulders and stood taller. “That being said, while I am sorry for treating you poorly, I do not agree with your methods. I don’t know when you decided to aid Talon, but it does not really matter, it is still despicable. And I will fight against any Talon schemes you are a part of without mercy.”

 

Moira swallowed the first biting remark that came to her mind (Without mercy? So that means you won’t bring Ziegler with you when you kill me? How generous.) and sighed. Well. _That_ was certainly unexpected.

 

After a short pause to gather her thoughts, Moira replied, “Thank you for the apology, but I wonder what you hope to gain out of it.”

 

Genji titled his head a few degrees. “Gain out of it?”

 

“Yes. Does it help soothe your pain? Now that you have tried to make amends will you sleep better?”

 

Moira chuckled darkly at Genji’s silence. “It was clear to me as soon as I walked into Blackwatch that I would never be one of the heroes that Overwatch would extol. But I had hoped that Blackwatch would be better fit for me. It was born in shadow, lived in shadow, and I could get my second chance there, just like you and Jesse. But that was a quickly dashed dream. You and Jesse made it quite clear that I didn’t deserve a second chance, that I was a monster, and that I didn’t belong. I was an outsider, always looking in on the ‘happy family’ that you had without any chance of actually being a part of it. And you benefited from my work in more ways than I think you even realize but didn’t want to acknowledge it. As long as you and the others could use my work and then point the blame at me later when things went wrong, you were content in the arrangement.”

 

Genji continued to be silent and standing stock still, so Moira added in another jab, wanting him to react and needing to see that she was affecting him, “As much as you thought of and still think of Overwatch as your family, you should realize that it wasn’t family for everyone. Where I am now, it’s treated me like family so much more than Overwatch ever did. They sent me here on this trip and encouraged me to have fun, to relax, to bond with a teammate. Overwatch rejected my requests for leave once they found out where I was going; I was too much of an embarrassment. The people I work with now, they don’t get it, but I don’t ask them to, and they respect me and my quirks in turn. They’ve been working to protect me from those that would harm me, like today. They listen to me when I have something to say. They _believe_ in my discoveries and acknowledge that they work! I don’t agree with everything that they do, and they don’t agree with everything I do, but we are more of a family than anything I’ve ever had at Overwatch. And this is a group of ‘unethical’ bastards we’re talking about.”

 

She crossed her arms as Genji finally looked away and shuffled his feet. “I… will concede that you were not included in the family,” he said softly.

 

Genji turned to her and said with a tone of wistfulness, “I wish I had known how fun conventions are when we were in Blackwatch together. I would have gone with you…”

 

Moira snorted. “You were too angry and hurt to come then, even if you knew how fun it was.”

 

She softened thinking about it. He had been in so much pain and there wasn’t much she could do about it without Ziegler potentially finding out, so her hands had been effectively tied. Still, she was glad that his emotional trauma was better. The others may think she has a heart of stone, but even she didn’t like the gaping abyss of pain both physical and mental that Genji had worn at Blackwatch like a cloak. She (among others) had tried to give advice and a shoulder to cry/scream on, but 1.) she wasn’t good at it and 2.) he mistrusted her anyways. At least someone got through to him to lessen his agony, finally. Gabriel would be pleased. “I’m glad that you are better, Genji.”

 

Genji nodded his head. “It is a difficult journey, but one worth making.”

 

Moira smiled. Well, there wasn’t _too_ much emotional drama, no yelling, screaming, biting, blood being drawn, etc. so she was going to call this a successful conversation. Time to wrap it up before shite went tits up again. “Speaking of journeys, I’d like to go rest now. Let’s head back to our teammates so we can depart.”

 

And with that, they headed back to their respective partners, who were busy arguing over some handheld gaming system D.Va was trying to play on while Sombra made snide comments over her shoulder.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Moira stared at the holopad in her hand without reading the words of the lab report on it. She kept thinking back to the conversation with Genji yesterday. She hadn’t realized how true some of the things she said were. Both Talon and Oasis treated her well. They cared about her. Maybe it wasn’t perfect but it was… it was good. She better not let it get to her head, she thought. It won’t last forever. As if sensing her melancholy state, Sombra flopped onto the couch, making Moira yelp in surprise and drop her holopad. “Sombra!”

 

“This safe house is really nice!” Sombra cheerfully exclaimed. “We get our own rooms and the shared bathroom has a reaaaaalllly nice tub.”

 

“So that’s where you disappeared to for the past hour.”

 

“Yeah! There was a pink and purple glitter bath bomb in the little basket and I just HAD to! I took so many pics and videos of the water. I took some tasteful selfies in the water too, I might send them to the cowboy to make him flustered. And! who knows, maybe a certain archer will be peeking over his shoulder when he gets it and gets jealous~!”

 

Moira chuckled. “Trying to make trouble again?”

 

“Fuck yeah! Besides, they’re so funny to watch! Oh, and thanks for telling Ziegler about my contribution to the betting pool.”

 

“You’re welcome.”

 

“Buuuuuut, next time maybe you should leave out that you’re going places when you email her.”

 

Moira groaned dramatically. “Yes, yes, I bollocksed up my own holiday because I forgot that Ziegler is a vindictive winged bitch.”

 

“Well,” Sombra added, “it was mostly Oasis’ fault for contacting the Over- noobs. And _they_ jumped to conclusions.”

 

Sombra muttered an additional sentence in Spanish under her breath.

 

“What?”

 

“Nada! It’s nothing!”

 

Moira raised an eyebrow. Did Sombra think she was stupid?

 

“Look, anyway I came out here to tell you that there’s more bath bombs in there. And one is purple and gold glitter! Or you can steal the one that’s pure black. I bet that one is from Reaper’s personal stash. Sooo if you wanna go relax…”

 

“No thank you,” Moira replied crisply, “I won’t fit in that tub, I’m too…long.” She waved a hand from her head to her feet tucked up under a blanket and back.

 

Sombra hummed. “How about… we watch a movie?”

 

Moira looked at Sombra carefully and slowly asked, “What kind of movie?”

 

Sombra flicked a wrist and opened up a holoscreen. “Anything you want! I got backdoors to every streaming service.”

 

Moira frowned. “Why?”

 

“Why what?”

 

“Why are you doing this?”

 

Sombra drew back in confusion. “Doing what?”

 

“Being,” Moira waves a hand vaguely in the holoscreen’s direction, “nice!”

 

“I can be nice!” Sombra pouted.

 

Moira just stared at Sombra. “I’m not saying that, I’m just saying that you usually expect… something later.”

 

“I can be nice without expecting payment!”

 

Moira raised an eyebrow.

 

Sombra fumed. “Fine! It’s cuz we aren’t going today!”

 

Moira narrowed her eyes. What? Why did Sombra care about that? “What does that have to do with anything?”

 

Sombra fidgeted and scowled, “If you keep being a bitch I’ll revoke my offer.”

 

Well, damn, she had pushed too hard. Moira continued staring at Sombra for a few beats before she looked away and muttered, “Spirited Away.”

 

“Qué?”

 

“Spirited Away. Let’s watch the movie, Spirited Away. It’s a classic anime movie by Miyazaki. We can even watch it dubbed, so you don’t have to read it.”

 

“Ok.”

 

After a few moments of Sombra searching and downloading it, the movie started. Moira set down her data pad and smiled. It wasn’t what she had planned to do for the last day of the convention, but this was nice too.


	11. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moira angrily shut off the video feed. She dug her fully grown fingernails into the countertop of her lab, adding to the deep grooves she had put there over time. Maximilien had been unhappy about the trip being cut short but understood that her holiday had issues beyond their control. However, Akande could be such a child sometimes. She liked him but he was being unreasonable.

Moira angrily shut off the video feed. She dug her fully grown fingernails into the countertop of her lab, adding to the deep grooves she had put there over time. Maximilien had been unhappy about the trip being cut short but understood that her holiday had issues beyond their control. However, Akande could be such a child sometimes. She liked him but he was being unreasonable.

 

She got almost all the items he wanted! Ok sure, she hadn’t gotten his data disks signed by the voice actors for the reboot of One Punch Man, but it wasn’t like she had planned to have Overwatch force her to leave a day early!

 

He kept insisting to be a part of Sombra’s punishment as well, repeatedly claiming that she was the root cause of everything going wrong by leaving Moira to go confront Genji. Moira didn’t want to tell him that it was really a combination of a lot of factors going horribly wrong, so she continued deflecting, saying that it was her holiday ruined, she would take care of it. Maximilien had simply said that if she wanted his help filing out the punishment to give him a call.

 

So far she made Sombra watch another classic anime movie with her (Summer Wars) and cut holes into a shoebox. Officially, Sombra was cleaning out rabbit cages and testing an experimental drug as punishment, but Moira decided to save those punishments for her naughty assistants who had slacked off in her absence instead.

 

Sombra had liked both movies (“I don’t know if I’d watch anime or anime movies all the time, but those were cool.”) and even provided the shoebox (“I had been wanting this new pair of heels anyway, chica”).

 

Moira picked up the hole-y shoebox off the counter and walked it over to a large aquarium on the other side of her lab. It was empty except for a black substance at the bottom. She set the shoebox to the side and opened the mini fridge below the counter. She pulled out a plate of vegetables and set it on the counter. She dropped in a piece of carrot and watched it disappear into the inky blackness.

 

“Eat up, sweetie. I know the assistants skimped on your meals. But don’t worry,” she smiled cruelly, “they’ll pay for your neglect.”

 

She tossed in a wedge of lettuce and cooed encouragements. It needed to eat up before its big journey to Ziegler.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's made it this far! I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> If you have constructive criticism, feel free to leave it at any time. 
> 
> I HAS A TUMBLRS - maximumcatfeels.tumblr.com  
> I DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE IT, I'M DUMB.  
> I JUST POST INTO THE VOID MOSTLY.
> 
> If you don't want to know about the next fic i'm working on, then just ignore the rest of these notes. 
> 
> The next fic will be centered around Solider:76 and the mysterious black goop that Moira is sending to Angela.   
> It will be kind of like this one in that it is meant to be mostly humorous, but there will be some feels moments. 
> 
> I've got it about half plotted out so far and about 11 pages already written.
> 
> So far characters with major roles are: Soldier, Angela, Zenyatta, Black goop  
> Minor roles: Hanzo, McCree, Moira, Winston, Dva, Athena, Sombra  
> (These may be subject to change, but currently, it's what I have planned.)
> 
> I am looking for a second Beta, and am willing to do something in return for the help (write something, draw something, etc - as long as we discuss it). 
> 
> I started writing Moira (and Sombra) go to an anime convention in March. While part of why it took so long was that it ended up being 70 pages long, part of it was that I would periodically send pieces off to my Beta to be proofread, and she wouldn't have time to look at it for weeks, and I didn't want to keep working on it until I knew that I was making sense with what I HAD written. Which is not her fault, she's a busy person. But I'd like to start writing faster. 
> 
> If I don't find one, that's fine, but I'm just throwing it out there. I don't know how long it will take to finish this next story. (I don't like posting stories until I have them 100% done) It could be a few months if this one was any indication. 
> 
> Here's an (unbeta'd) excerpt from what I have of the next story: 
> 
> Zenyatta was only somewhat helpful. 
> 
> The golden orb bobbing over Soldier’s shoulder like a balloon was definitely helping his headache. Zenyatta’s attempts at therapy were not. 
> 
> “Mr Morrison-“ 
> 
> “Soldier:76.” 
> 
> Zenyatta paused. “May I call you Solider?” 
> 
> “Yes.” 
> 
> “Mr Soldier, while I am pleased to be able to help you with your ailment, we really should discuss your mental state. I do not promise to be able to ‘cure’ you of your problems, but I am more than willing to help you along your path.”
> 
> Soldier sighed internally, then decided that he should sigh externally too. So he did.


End file.
